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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Narrative Games - three very distinct categories
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<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 7850639" data-attributes="member: 6688937"><p>I'm not sure exactly how to respond to this....</p><p></p><p>I guess I've seen too many implementations of these rulesets (at least the core mechanics) that break these assumptions. Nor am I at all sure that the "opposite sides of the traditional gaming" thing is accurate, either.</p><p></p><p>I mean, its designers thought Fate would be bad for something like Horror...but it turns out later people saw the rules and thought....Nope, works just fine. Similarly, the AW engine has been applied through Dungeon World to do a pretty fair imitation of traditional D&D. And there are other PbtA games that jog pretty far away from the "architects of their own misfortune" trope as well. Similarly, both games also feature "success with a cost" so...yeah.</p><p></p><p>Further, and this may be just me, both PbtA, FitD, and Fate rely much more heavily on the established narrative than traditional games (read D&D). Where traditional games tend to rely heavily on thinly-disguised meta-narrative mechanics (HP, spell slots, levels, etc.), and the narrative must bend to serve them, none of the above games do. Which I see as a much more important distinction than the various genre flavors the engines can be assigned.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand....I twitch a little bit when people describe any of these games as Story Games. With the exception of Fiasco (and I'm not familiar with MLWM) these games do not actually do anything to drive a story arc to or through any particular conclusion. However, they are all really "narration-focused" rather than Forge "Narrative", IMO.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, just my $.02</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 7850639, member: 6688937"] I'm not sure exactly how to respond to this.... I guess I've seen too many implementations of these rulesets (at least the core mechanics) that break these assumptions. Nor am I at all sure that the "opposite sides of the traditional gaming" thing is accurate, either. I mean, its designers thought Fate would be bad for something like Horror...but it turns out later people saw the rules and thought....Nope, works just fine. Similarly, the AW engine has been applied through Dungeon World to do a pretty fair imitation of traditional D&D. And there are other PbtA games that jog pretty far away from the "architects of their own misfortune" trope as well. Similarly, both games also feature "success with a cost" so...yeah. Further, and this may be just me, both PbtA, FitD, and Fate rely much more heavily on the established narrative than traditional games (read D&D). Where traditional games tend to rely heavily on thinly-disguised meta-narrative mechanics (HP, spell slots, levels, etc.), and the narrative must bend to serve them, none of the above games do. Which I see as a much more important distinction than the various genre flavors the engines can be assigned. On the other hand....I twitch a little bit when people describe any of these games as Story Games. With the exception of Fiasco (and I'm not familiar with MLWM) these games do not actually do anything to drive a story arc to or through any particular conclusion. However, they are all really "narration-focused" rather than Forge "Narrative", IMO. Anyway, just my $.02 [/QUOTE]
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