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General Tabletop Discussion
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Narrative Games - three very distinct categories
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<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 7851966" data-attributes="member: 6688937"><p>I haven't played (or even read) Apocalypse World itself, but I have read and played several of its descendants. I also am very picky about my thinking on "story game" vs "Narrative rpg". Maybe I'm crazy, too. In any case, I don't see how the PbtA engine actually drives "Story" vs. driving "Narrative\Narration". For a close cousin that I think does a better job, I look at Blades in the Dark. There, you have nice tight beginning-end-conclusion mechanics, with the added bonus of making things loop like a serialized TV show. (Honestly, I keep thinking of Peaky Blinders when reading it.) And I see I made an error in my post above in excluding it from the "Story Game" category.</p><p></p><p>Maybe I'm too picky (or ignorant of some brilliant facet of AW that didn't get picked up by most of its descendants), but I generally see the PbtA games as sort of careening from one trigger to the next. (In a mechanical sense, the fiction\narrative is likely to be coherent.) Whether it spirals down to some conclusion seems to me to be as much at the whim of the players/GM as a traditional rpg. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>hmm.....I'm a little baffled as to how the fiction/narration <em>isn't </em>bent to the rules. I mean, that's kinda the point (in any rpg, really). Wizards/magic work a certain way because they have to, in order to make sense of spell slots and memorization. The same is true of combat and almost any other aspect of ongoing narration/fiction. HP totals determine quite a lot about how PCs act, yet there have been innumerable arguments over the years on just what happens when you take damage! You can write down whatever you want for your backstory, but your class & level will matter much more than that ever will. Granted, traps and the other interactive scenery are more freeform in some of the early material, but perusing the published adventures, one can see how quickly they moved to fill in those gaps.</p><p></p><p>I see a stark contrast between that and the way games like Fate, PbtA, and BitD handle things. Mostly because in those old games, your character isn't really a part of the fiction, she's just a scribble of mechanical notes. Writing or having a backstory is optional, since basically the character drop in ex nihilo. (There are OSR folks who don't even <em>name </em>their characters until they reach third level.) YOU might figure out a puzzle or negotiate a social encounter...but your character has less and less to do with it as you go back in rule sets.*</p><p></p><p>In all the modern games mentioned, your character "stats" and even their character sheet is much more integral to the fiction directly. Heck, the fictional elements of many PbtA games changes profoundly depending on what character packages are chosen. The mechanics in these games let you <em>determine</em> the a lot of the nature of the fiction, rather than just bounce through it. Even if they don't drive it through a story arc, they let you determine much more about the elements that you will encounter.</p><p></p><p>just my $.03</p><p></p><p>*And, to be clear, that's totally legit as a playstyle.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 7851966, member: 6688937"] I haven't played (or even read) Apocalypse World itself, but I have read and played several of its descendants. I also am very picky about my thinking on "story game" vs "Narrative rpg". Maybe I'm crazy, too. In any case, I don't see how the PbtA engine actually drives "Story" vs. driving "Narrative\Narration". For a close cousin that I think does a better job, I look at Blades in the Dark. There, you have nice tight beginning-end-conclusion mechanics, with the added bonus of making things loop like a serialized TV show. (Honestly, I keep thinking of Peaky Blinders when reading it.) And I see I made an error in my post above in excluding it from the "Story Game" category. Maybe I'm too picky (or ignorant of some brilliant facet of AW that didn't get picked up by most of its descendants), but I generally see the PbtA games as sort of careening from one trigger to the next. (In a mechanical sense, the fiction\narrative is likely to be coherent.) Whether it spirals down to some conclusion seems to me to be as much at the whim of the players/GM as a traditional rpg. hmm.....I'm a little baffled as to how the fiction/narration [I]isn't [/I]bent to the rules. I mean, that's kinda the point (in any rpg, really). Wizards/magic work a certain way because they have to, in order to make sense of spell slots and memorization. The same is true of combat and almost any other aspect of ongoing narration/fiction. HP totals determine quite a lot about how PCs act, yet there have been innumerable arguments over the years on just what happens when you take damage! You can write down whatever you want for your backstory, but your class & level will matter much more than that ever will. Granted, traps and the other interactive scenery are more freeform in some of the early material, but perusing the published adventures, one can see how quickly they moved to fill in those gaps. I see a stark contrast between that and the way games like Fate, PbtA, and BitD handle things. Mostly because in those old games, your character isn't really a part of the fiction, she's just a scribble of mechanical notes. Writing or having a backstory is optional, since basically the character drop in ex nihilo. (There are OSR folks who don't even [I]name [/I]their characters until they reach third level.) YOU might figure out a puzzle or negotiate a social encounter...but your character has less and less to do with it as you go back in rule sets.* In all the modern games mentioned, your character "stats" and even their character sheet is much more integral to the fiction directly. Heck, the fictional elements of many PbtA games changes profoundly depending on what character packages are chosen. The mechanics in these games let you [I]determine[/I] the a lot of the nature of the fiction, rather than just bounce through it. Even if they don't drive it through a story arc, they let you determine much more about the elements that you will encounter. just my $.03 *And, to be clear, that's totally legit as a playstyle. [/QUOTE]
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