"Narrative Options" mechanical?

[Ryujin]

I would say that "narrative guidance" would be a more accurate term than "narrative control." The DM 'dad' plans the vacation route, but the 'kids' deviate from the plan as it goes along. You can nudge the players, one way or the other, you can just let them have completely free rein, or something in between. Back in the 1e days I had taken great pains to populate my world with interesting NPCs, then took the time to introduce the players to them. Quite frequently I would create situation "A", set goal "C", and let the players figure out path "B" all for themselves. Given that both I and they knew the world intimately, it became quite easy to do this sort of thing. I long to run that sort of campaign again, but having a life means not having the time anymore.

I've never played a full-on spell caster in 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder, but nor have I ever played a plain Fighter. I generally seem to go for some sort of Fighter/Thief/Monk combination, as I'm a fan of the lightly or unarmoured Kensai sort of fighter concept, but I have played one Bard archer character. In that case Bard was strictly to get into Arcane Archer, which gave me some interesting options without using magical projectiles. In 4e the character I spent them most time playing was a Warlock with Bard as a multiclass, whch made me easily the least powerful (dpr) character in the group. Since I spent every waking moment of that character trying to 'master magic' (in other words 'acquire every ritual in any book') and had an ungodly high Bluff I was incredibly useful OUT of combat though. Funny how that never seemed to matter to the other players

Part of the problem is that Wizards don't have to "describe their actions." The DM says that there is a mountain in the PCs' path, so the Wizard says, "I cast Fly and fly over it," while the Fighter player says, "I'm going to climb the mountain," at which point the DM begins subjecting him to an arbitrary amount of skill checks, each one making it increasingly likely that the PC will fail, while the Wizard just pressed the "I Win" button.

No Wizard would dare trying that "I win" button in one of my campaigns. At least not a second time. A tasty squishy morsel floating around in plain sight, in the mountains? That's flying fodder for giant eagles, wyverns, dragons, rocs, ....... Spider Climb would be fine, but people tend to prefer 'flying under the RADAR' in my campaigns.

 

[Alzrius]

It is problematic. I find there's too much overlap between classes. I don't see that really going away. I had pretty good luck, from my own point of view, assigning feats to each class, rather than keep them general to anyone, but I would guarantee that some will have issue with assigning Power Attack as a Barbarian only feat. It's my preference though and if we keep everything general, we start getting away from having a class system to begin with.

I suspect that getting away from a class system in the first place would solve most of these issues, but that's an academic argument, because that would never be accepted by the vast majority of D&D's fan base.

I've been using a point-buy class-construction supplement for my Pathfinder game for several months now, and I'm far and away happier with it (and can't resist shilling for it every now and then). Even leaving aside purely practical issues of hunting through various books and online databases, I find that it solves most of these very issues.

It does so because 1) Characters can all select from a wide pool of abilities, which are the same for all of them, allowing characters to customize their narrative potential to their own desires, and 2) the system is not only very expansive in the powers it offers, but is highly flexible in modifying those powers, so you can make pretty much anything.

Now, I have heard some people complain that a system like that turns everyone into "quasi-spellcasters," because even the dedicated fighter-types tend to grab a few powers that are quite clearly supernatural in nature. I don't think that's necessarily true (since the association for how the power functions in-game can usually be described however the player wants), but even if it is, that's going to be fine for most D&D worlds that I know, since the degree of magic is high enough that you can kludge together a reason for why your character has some mystical power, even if it's not true spellcasting the way a wizard has it (for example, there are over a dozen ways to, say, animate the dead that I can think of using this system).

Ultimately, I think that's the only workable solution if you want characters to have the degree of narrative options while still retaining differing thematic roles in the game.

 

[sheadunne]

I suspect that getting away from a class system in the first place would solve most of these issues, but that's an academic argument, because that would never be accepted by the vast majority of D&D's fan base.

I've been using a point-buy class-construction supplement for my Pathfinder game for several months now, and I'm far and away happier with it (and can't resist schilling for it every now and then). Even leaving aside purely practical issues of hunting through various books and online databases, I find that it solves most of these very issues.

It does so because 1) Characters can all select from a wide pool of abilities, which are the same for all of them, allowing characters to customize their narrative potential to their own desires, and 2) the system is not only very expansive in the powers it offers, but is highly flexible in modifying those powers, so you can make pretty much anything.

Now, I have heard some people complain that a system like that turns everyone into "quasi-spellcasters," because even the dedicated fighter-types tend to grab a few powers that are quite clearly supernatural in nature. I don't think that's necessarily true (since the association for how the power functions in-game can usually be described however the player wants), but even if it is, that's going to be fine for most D&D worlds that I know, since the degree of magic is high enough that you can kludge together a reason for why your character has some mystical power, even if it's not true spellcasting the way a wizard has it (for example, there are over a dozen ways to, say, animate the dead that I can think of using this system).

Ultimately, I think that's the only workable solution if you want characters to have the degree of narrative options while still retaining differing thematic roles in the game.

I agree. I'll have to give Eclipse a look. I'm always looking for ways to make the game more interesting. 3.5 and PF pretty much encourage magic heavy games anyway so I've never had a problem with it.

A point-buy system is certainly a way to balance narrative options between characters since any character has the option to select it. I'd still love to see a good selection of martial narrative options, with or without integration into an official source book.

 

[Alzrius]

I agree. I'll have to give Eclipse a look. I'm always looking for ways to make the game more interesting. 3.5 and PF pretty much encourage magic heavy games anyway so I've never had a problem with it.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I should mention that while I think the book is brilliant for what it offers, it's extremely lacking in practical examples to help make sense of the fairly dense array of options that it presents. To help with that, I recommend reading the co-author's blog, where he's posted many, many examples of what the book can do, and takes questions too.

 

[N'raac]

Probably, but I'm sticking with my own definition I posted up thread

I think that's the one I reprint below. Thanks - I must have missed it the first time.

For me it's changing the narrative (the description presented by the DM). For me, ignoring or following plot hooks is not changing the narrative, but interacting with it. "You walk into a room with 3 orcs. We close the door and leave." For me isn't changing or control the narrative, but rather interacting with it, or in this case, refusing to interact with it. Now if it went something like, "You walk into a room with 3 orcs. No, they're not three orcs, they're really chickens," this would be changing the narrative.

Ok, I like this definition so far, but...well, we'll come to that.

1) Depends on the class I guess. A rogue should be able to influence the narrative in different ways than a fighter or wizard or cleric. Since D&D is a class system, I think it's the best way to start, rather than developing narrative control that any player can use. These control bits can be tied to universal mechanics like skills or feats, but should only be able to be accessed by specific classes. Does that make sense?

2) I am perfectly fine with dice rolls determining whether the narrative is controlled or changed, as long as it's consistent and simple across all classes.

I think your comments make sense. I on't know that it is necessary to develop separate mechanics for every class, but I see no reason it could not look a lot like spells, some of which are available to only one class, others being available to several, and some having differing levels between classes. Nothing wrong with a feat requiring X levels in Y class (like Weapon Specialization), or a BAB, or save bonus, of +X, or other abilities (evasion, trapfinding, ability to cast certain spells of cerain levels, what have you.

Let's remember that there's a difference between narrative and story. Narrative is used to describe the scene (there are three orcs in the room) and story is what happens during (a battle ensues, dice are rolled, story emerges). Martial characters can interact with the story but they don't have the capacity to change or even shape the narrative (they cannot say that the orc are really chickens and the room is really a giant pit), only the story that emerges (they can choose what actions to take to fight the orcs, talk to them, etc). Casters have the ability to change and shape the narrative (those orcs really are chickens) as well as interact with the story (burn, lightening, ray beams).

Here's that ...but. I don't think the wizard has changed the narrative. He has interacted with it, using the means at his disposal. There are three orcs in the room (narrative) is followe by the wizard turning them into chickens (story), just as the fighter can turn them into slashed dead orcs or the wizard can turn them into scorched dead orcs. A narrative change would require the wizard (or his character) be able to force the orcs to have been chickens from the outset - they did not see orcs when they opened the door, because there were never any orcs in the room.

It's perfectly fine to want to limit narrative capacity to the DM and casters, D&D has traditionally done this, although I'm not sure it was done intentionally. For those who want balance, it's not between story abilities it's between narrative control abilities. These abilities do not have to do the same things, but what's wrong with the fighter saying, the orcs charge me because I'm wearing shiny armor and look threatening (narrative), and when they get into range I attack them (story)?

If the Wizard casts Taunt, I'd call that Story, and if the fighter can cause targets to attack because he looks threatening, that's no more "narrative control" than the ability to get them to pick a different target because he Intimidates them. If the fighter can say "no, these orcs are not craven cowards, seeking to pick off the weakest targets, but bold warriors who will attack the most powerful-looking opponent", now the player has changed the narrative, rather than the fighter interacting with that narrative.

Another way to look at it is, narrative does not require dice rolls. It is a description. A fact if you will. The narrative can be determined randomly (wandering monsters for instance) but it's rare that the entire narrative will be determine randomly (the size of the room, the location, the creatures, the traps, etc). And from a player point of view, it doesn't matter. The narrative has been described by the DM and it's time to start making stories (unless you're a caster, then you have some resources to change that narrative if you don't like it).

Coming back to those orcs, dice rolls were required to see whether they were, or were not, polymorphed into chickens. That seems to shift us back into "story". I think the wizard's spells just indicate he has different (arguably also more, and/or better) ways to interact with the narrative to produce the story he desires. So we're back to the kind of control desired being the issue.

Story is the result of dice rolls (rules) that interact with the narrative. Does the brave sir walter hit the orc? Does he survive the stab to the chest? Does the rogue manage to steal the gem or sneak past the ogre? All players can interact with the narrative to create the story, regardless of character abilities.

"Does the wily wizard's spell succeed in and turn the orcs into chickens" seems a similar question.

 

[Warbringer]

...since the association for how the power functions in-game can usually be described however the player wants

Ergo, narrative

 

[I'm A Banana]

Now if it went something like, "You walk into a room with 3 orcs. No, they're not three orcs, they're really chickens," this would be changing the narrative.

See, because I'm a fan of improvisational play, that kind of thing is toxic to me. One of the big rules of improv is "don't deny." You don't contradict or negate a previous person's contribution. You accept it, and move forward with it, and it becomes part of the scene. If it is established (by being said) that you enter a room full of orcs, then that's what happened, and your choices now are about what you do about that, not about the scenario itself.

But I don't think this means that only the wizard has the power of narrative change, because the wizard doesn't deny that the orcs were there, either. The wizard just changes them into chickens. Mechanically, this is roughly identical to the fighter killing them all (ie: it removes the entire threat from the scenario). I'm into letting fighters massacre more orcs. I'm not so into denial.

 

[Mike Eagling]

Here's that ...but. I don't think the wizard has changed the narrative. He has interacted with it, using the means at his disposal. There are three orcs in the room (narrative) is followe by the wizard turning them into chickens (story), just as the fighter can turn them into slashed dead orcs or the wizard can turn them into scorched dead orcs. A narrative change would require the wizard (or his character) be able to force the orcs to have been chickens from the outset - they did not see orcs when they opened the door, because there were never any orcs in the room.

If the Wizard casts Taunt, I'd call that Story, and if the fighter can cause targets to attack because he looks threatening, that's no more "narrative control" than the ability to get them to pick a different target because he Intimidates them. If the fighter can say "no, these orcs are not craven cowards, seeking to pick off the weakest targets, but bold warriors who will attack the most powerful-looking opponent", now the player has changed the narrative, rather than the fighter interacting with that narrative.

I'm currently unable to xp but wanted to +1 this post.

 

[pemerton]

From a purely theoretical perspective, I can see how there's a metagame aspect to those, but AFAIK, none of those things require or even allow the players to make choices from outside of their characters' perspective and abilities.

Hit points have this character: I can choose to have my PC confront a risk (say, a fight with an orc or a jump down a cliff) knowing that s/he can't die from physical injury, whereas my PC can't have the same knowledge.

Saving throws can also have this character, although it's less stark. The absence of a saving throw for classic D&D energy drain is one of its notorious features for this very reason: the player really does inhabit the character's space, knowing that there's no chance of escaping the dire fate.

In a typical roleplaying session, don't players often wield powers that go beyond their characters' capabilities? Character creation, character backstory elements, giving tactical advice or other suggestions to another player, providing advice to the GM in an area of special expertise (such as medieval weaponry or Forgotten Realms canon), arguments about what's realistic, rules knowledge, ideas for house rules, bringing third party rules supplements to the table, suggestions to increase or decrease the power of certain player character or NPC abilities, and the "GM's significant other" phenomena.

I think that the issue some rpg-ers have with metagame mechanics, such as hero points in James Bond 007, is precisely that they are mechanics. Players always exerted an influence on the game space beyond their characters' abilities, but it was mostly informal. Now metagame power has the extra weight of the rules behind it. That's the key difference, I think. It's the only difference I can see between the old and new forms of metagame power.

Agreed. In a "traditional" game you ask the GM "Is there a flower pot on the windowsill I can throw down at the person climbing up the fire escape?" In a "modern" game you expend a resource or make a die roll to render it true, in the shared fiction, that there's a flower point on the windowsill that you can throw down at the person climbing up the fire escape. Both are the player contributing to the fiction - it's just that one contribution is mediated via the GM's authority, the other is not.

You might term it differently, but I think the distinction between a game where you are strictly playing one character and a game where you have "narrative control" outside of that character is pretty clear

In Burning Wheel a player strictly plays one character. But they still have "narrative control" outside that character (eg via Circles or Wises). And Burning Wheel is a paradigm RPG.

My understanding of the difference is that RPGs explicitly allow anything to be attempted by the PCs, though the likelihood of success can vary dramatically. By contrast, story games place constraints on character agency in favor of the narrative - to use a slightly exaggerated example, I may be playing Professor Plum in a game of Clue(do), trying to figure out who killed our host, but I can't just decide to have the Professor attack the other characters, or leave the house, or something similar.

Given that, I suspect that most (if not all) of the examples you cited actually are RPGs.

I don't think that Ahnehnois agrees on that last point.

I mean let's look at some of the games you continuously cite as examples... MHRP was recently cancelled, The Dying Earth rpg is no longer published and I don't think Hero Wars/Quest is either. DitV and Burning Wheel are barely blips on most gamers radars... Honestly, Fate is about the only rpg that you continuously mention (and ironically enough have claimed the least experience with) that I can see as being anything resembling popular and, as far as I can tell from other sites, that seems to be mostly amongst already established gamers.

MHRP was cancelled due to licensing issues. There is no evidence that it was an unpopular game that I'm aware of. HeroWars/Quest has a website here that seems current. A free, lite preview for Maelstrom Storytelling - "Story Bones" - is available on RPGNow.

(I also don't see what's ironic about not being experienced with FATE, but whatever.)

That said, by far the most popular (and thus accessible) roleplaying games are of the traditional variety. Burning Wheel, Maelstrom, and the other games you continually mention are nowhere near the scale of popularity that Pathfinder, Warhammer 40K, Iron Kingdoms, D&D, Dragon Age and so on have. I mean if this is what D&D should be striving for why aren't these games which make heavy use of meta-game mechanics more popular amongst gamers? Why aren't they bringing in a flood of new gamers? Why have so many of them fallen into publishing limbo or obscurity and/or are barely mentioned on most rpg sites?

D&D 4e isn't that obscure. And it has mechanics lifted from those other games. (And chapters in its DMG2 are cribbed by Laws straight from HeroQuest revised.)

I don't think a game like DitV is ever going to be as popular as D&D - it's tropes are a bit particular, apart from anything else. But if Burning Wheel had the marketing and design budget of D&D I think it could make a pretty good fist of things!

From my own experience - which is what it is, and nothing more - new players of RPGs expect to be able to contribute to the fiction within which their PCs are located. Learning to sit back and swallow the GM's story takes time and self-discipline.

 

[pemerton]

There's the issue of Fortune-in-the-Middle. Saving throws as described in 1e AD&D are explicitly FitM, and some approaches to 4e play are FitM too. As I understand it (and I might have this wrong as I'm not that up on narrativist play) the game mechanic that's in the middle of FitM can be used to support narrativist play, but it doesn't have to be. The game mechanic decides part of what happens in the game world. For many, probably most, players, what the mechanic describes - such as whether a saving throw succeeds or whether the Come And Get It maneuver works - is all that matters. My understanding is that for a narrativist, interpreting what that result means in the game world is an important part of play too - how does the hero escape, why do the antagonists rush forward to their doom?

The FitM approach doesn't necessarily give players metagame power, it depends on who has the power to interpret the mechanic. Maybe only the GM can interpret the results. I get the impression that Gary Gygax's concern is with justifying D&D's mechanics to critics, and giving D&D DMs some arguments to deploy against charges of lack of realism. FitM enables rpg participants to choose the most plausible interpretation of an abstract game mechanic, so it can be used for this purpose.

The main connection that Ron Edwards draws between FitM and narrativst play is that, in narrativist play, FitM preserves the player's conception of his/her PC - eg if you miss an attack, rather than narrating that as "I suck" - which you have to in RQ, say, because you can't narrate it as a parry by your enemy if the processing of the resolution never got to the parry stage - you can narrate it as "My powerful flurry of blows is parried by their equally awesome sword skills" - now instead of sucking my guy is so awesome that I'm in a duel with the best duelist in the country.

4e uses FitM to allow theme to emerge - eg when a PC goes down, we don't know yet what the "0 hp" means, because we don't know yet whether or not there will be a heroic recovery (from a warlord's inspiration, or a 20+ on the death save, or whatever). So the FitM allows the 0 hp to act as a prelude to/foreshadowing of either heroic recovery or tragic failure. I think that's another narrativst-ish deployment of FitM.

Ron Edwards identifies FitM as a common aspect of gamist play too - "the point is, he says, "that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion." My feeling is that in a lot of Gygaxian play with pawn stance players, much of the exploration may never be established ie we don't really care exactly what happened in that 1 minute combat round, just about the outcome (ie just as you, Doug, said in your post).

The dialogue between Sister Rebecca and morgan Ironwolf was used to illustrate the influence of alignment choice on player activity.

Sure, but that seems only to confirm my point. The influence of alignment choice on player activity is itself an expression of "actor stance" RPing. The fact that much play was pawn stance, and that some saw this as a problem that didn't fit well with the game's alignment system, is shown by the effort that writers of the time (eg Lewis Pulsipher in White Dwarf, Gygax in parts of the PHB and DMG) to insist that alignment matters in ways that go beyond clerical spell selection and interacting with intelligent swords.

Every time I see a poster in a paladin thread saying "Paladins have to be restricted by mechanical alignment or else paladin players will have their PCs kidnapping and torturing villagers at the drop of a hat" I see someone who has encountered pawn stance players, doesn't like them, but can't see any way of resolving the issue other than by wielding the stick of mechanical alignment against them.

Let's remember that there's a difference between narrative and story. Narrative is used to describe the scene (there are three orcs in the room) and story is what happens during (a battle ensues, dice are rolled, story emerges). Martial characters can interact with the story but they don't have the capacity to change or even shape the narrative (they cannot say that the orc are really chickens and the room is really a giant pit), only the story that emerges (they can choose what actions to take to fight the orcs, talk to them, etc). Casters have the ability to change and shape the narrative (those orcs really are chickens) as well as interact with the story (burn, lightening, ray beams).

I think this is the same distinction that I've drawn in these threads between "scene framing" and "action resolution".

"You see some orcs." "OK - I attack them." That's action resolution.

"You see some orcs." "OK - I polymorph them into chickens." That's scene-reframing.

The borderline can be murky, and depends heavily on tropes, mechanics and group expectations. For instance, in MHRP "You see some Skrulls." "OK, I teleport to another planet to get away from them." can be part of action resolution, because the game has mechanics to handle that sort of change of geographic location as part of the resolution of a single scene. On the other hand, in D&D "You see some demons." "OK, I Plane Shift to the Seven Heavens to get away from them." is scene re-framing rather than action resolution, both because the game lacks the mechanics to handle that sort of change of geographic location as part of the resolution of a single scene, and because the game lacks robust mechanics to regulate how much pressure the GM can place on a LG PC who Plane Shifts to the Seven Heavens, meaning that it can look like Viking Hat GMing to treat this as anything other than a "get out of jail free card", at least in the immediate term.

Another way to look at it is, narrative does not require dice rolls. It is a description

I think that's too strong a claim. A D&D wizard's teleport often requires a die roll. So does polymorphing the orcs into chickens (they get saves).

And not all action resolution requires dice rolls. Cast Cure Light Wounds in Basic D&D to unparalyse your ally who's been paralysed by a ghoul doesn't require a die roll; likewise a 4e paladin using Lay on Hands in the middle of combat. But both are action resolution rather than scene-reframing.

See, because I'm a fan of improvisational play, that kind of thing is toxic to me. One of the big rules of improv is "don't deny." You don't contradict or negate a previous person's contribution. You accept it, and move forward with it, and it becomes part of the scene. If it is established (by being said) that you enter a room full of orcs, then that's what happened, and your choices now are about what you do about that, not about the scenario itself.

But I don't think this means that only the wizard has the power of narrative change, because the wizard doesn't deny that the orcs were there, either. The wizard just changes them into chickens. Mechanically, this is roughly identical to the fighter killing them all (ie: it removes the entire threat from the scenario). I'm into letting fighters massacre more orcs. I'm not so into denial.

For at least some of those who are interested in "narrative otions" for non-spellcasters I think this somewhat misses the point. (I use the word "think" deliberately. It may be that I've not probably grasped your on-point point.)

I think everyone acknowledges that when a wizard uses polymorph to turn the orcs into chickens, that doesn't retcon the shared fiction (there's no denial, in your sense of that word). In the fiction, the orcs were orcs that got magically transformed into chickens. The point is that, at the table, the player didn't actually engage with the situation involving the orcs. That situation was not explored. Rather, in practical terms it was rewritten. (In a movie, this would be a moment of light relief, as what looks like a threatening situation actually reveals itself to not be one at all.)

The analogue for a fighter would be a token, or a "kill em all dead kwik" skill roll, that allowed the player of a fighter to equally simply, in mechanical terms, declare "Nope, no orcs here. I've killed them all!"

There are RPG designs that exploit this contrast between engaging a scene and rewriting it. For instance, Burning Wheel and HeroWars/Quest (and probably other systems too) have simple resolution, in which a single roll from a player (whether of caster, or non-caster) resolves a scene and obliged the GM to frame a new one. The general advice in those systems is to use simple resolution to keep up your pacing and not get bogged down until something that really matters comes along - then you switch to the complex resolution systems and we're not longer talking about rapid movement from scene to scene but the players actually engaging a scene that the GM has framed.

D&D seems unlikely to have this sort of simple resolution mechanic any time soon, given that 4e didn't fully embrace it despite coming the closest to these sorts of design sensibilities. The idea of a hit point threshold on spells like polymorph in early versions of D&Dnext seemed designed to make those spells lack their scene-reframing character - they become "closers" that you can only use after having engaged the scene for a bit and found out what it's about. But I think that's mostly gone now, hasn't it?