Narrative Space Options for non-spellcasters

[Mike Eagling]

A possible mundane parallel was given above - the "infiltrator" schtick that lets a player replace a minion character, saying "This was my character, in disguise". While I can accept this narrative powers like infiltrator here, my players are not so keen on them.

Yeah, I can appreciate where they're coming from. In D&D I'd want to role-play the infiltration. Retrospectively saying "A-ha! This was me all long!" doesn't mesh with my POV cause-and-effect way of playing, even though it'd likely be great in a different game.

@sheadunne: I like your "summon peasant" idea

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't have my books with me for the various systems that employ narrative tools but its pretty straight forward. Players are provided with PC build tools which give them assets/resources/techniques for their characters to use or that provide complications for their enemies. Oftentimes, the assets/resources/techniques are (or at least can be) deployed from actor stance while the complications are deployed from author or director stance; the latter being the strongly metagame variety of resources that cause problems for some people.

For instance:

An analog for the powerful Divination spell "Detect Thoughts" or various scouting ("Eye" or "Divination") spells might provide a character the ability to subtely swindle information out of a subject. This might ocurr with some social grease over a night of drinks, through a proxy network ("I know a guy who knows a guy"), or perhaps immediately through skill (such as Streetwise, Intimidate, Insight, Diplomacy). The important thing is that (a) the player gets to deploy this situation proactively, (b) have the odds of success be of the same variety as the afformentioned Detect Thoughts, (c) and the results of the forrtune resolution be either assured (not vague "you think") or (d) the player gets to outright author the results and create content in the fiction.

There can be an analog for a Wall of Force or some other powerful Conjuration or Transumation. Perhaps the player spends a <whatever> point to create a complication/obstacle for an enemy. During a chase, the player might decide that the character knows a hidden shortcut to evade pursuit or corner prey...or a nigh-impassable gorge might appear over a rise in a horseback chase...or a bustling market or a lively tavern which is easy to lose a tail in.

 

[Starfox]

An analog for the powerful Divination spell "Detect Thoughts" or various scouting ("Eye" or "Divination") spells might ...

A comfy chair?

Semi-seriously, the soft cushions + smite evil is a 100% proof method of detecting evil - no amount of anti-divination can defeat that.

 

[Umbran]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], I wish it was easy to define what abilities are narrative. As a very simple basic definition, a narrative ability is the opposite of a tactical ability. An ability that works off the battle mat is narrative. Again, I am open to better definitions.

I think part of the reason to think in terms of "narrative space" or "relevance" is just this. Any ability allows you to affect the narrative - tactical combat abilities allow you to affect the narrative *of combat*. The fight is part of the story, and your fighting powers help determine how it goes! Some abilities (like the ability to directly create a complication for an adversary) allow you to more directly influence the narrative, but ultimately, any ability does the trick.

The fighter's problem is that, while he has lots of abilities, they are *all* in combat. The only place and time the Fighter typically gets to influence the narrative is in the fight. In social scenes, or puzzle scenes, he's pretty much sitting on his hands, waiting for others to do the job. So, however many abilities he has, he only has that one narrative space.

 

[Alzrius]

The fighter's problem is that, while he has lots of abilities, they are *all* in combat. The only place and time the Fighter typically gets to influence the narrative is in the fight. In social scenes, or puzzle scenes, he's pretty much sitting on his hands, waiting for others to do the job. So, however many abilities he has, he only has that one narrative space.

There's another aspect to this, though. The fighter is supposed to be better at affecting that particular narrative than other characters, which gets into questions of the degree to which a character can influence a narrative versus how many narratives they can influence at all. If you put that on a graph, a fighter has very little measure on the X axis, but is very high on the Y.

Now, there are some areas of debate in this, mostly in terms of "spellcasters trample all over the fighter's combat mastery" and "some narrative ability in multiple narrative areas is better than narrative mastery in a single area at the cost of being able to affect any other." The latter, however, is an opinion that's going to vary from person to person (including ideas of how much trying to make the fighter effective in other narratives will dilute his theme as a fighter), whereas the former is a question of whether this should be fixed by busting down spellcasters' combat prowess, or raising up the fighter's even more.

 

[LostSoul]

I'm curious and still a little unclear on what exactly falls into the category of "narrative" abilities and what doesn't... Would skills be considered tools to change the narrative? What about class abilities or feats? I guess I am asking for some criteria by which we can say this is a "narrative tool" and this is not since these all seem capable of being used to influence or change the narrative of the game.

Yeah, me too. My guess is that it means the tools that a PC uses in order to achieve their goals.

Class specific stuff (so not magic items or contacts, since those aren't tied to a class; anyone can pick up boots of teleport or a crystal ball or make friends with a king) would be...
A fighter can fight.
A wizard can teleport, scry, go to other planes, summon monsters to fight, cast magic, give information, etc. - a lot of stuff.

Which would mean that the wizard's goals can be a lot "bigger and wider" - a wizard can cover more area and has more options. Then either the fighter goes along with the wizard's goals or the wizard limits his goals to the fighter's. If their goals were the same and the goal is one that the fighter can accomplish without the wizard then there is no conflict. Otherwise I think there would be; does the wizard need the fighter to accomplish their goals as much as the fighter needs the wizard? (I guess the XP system can throw a wrinkle into this... It's possible that the longer it takes to achieve a goal the easier it becomes.)

 

[Mike Eagling]

The fighter is supposed to be better at affecting that particular narrative than other characters

Now, there are some areas of debate in this, mostly in terms of "spellcasters trample all over the fighter's combat mastery" and "some narrative ability in multiple narrative areas is better than narrative mastery in a single area at the cost of being able to affect any other." The latter, however, is an opinion that's going to vary from person to person (including ideas of how much trying to make the fighter effective in other narratives will dilute his theme as a fighter), whereas the former is a question of whether this should be fixed by busting down spellcasters' combat prowess, or raising up the fighter's even more.

LotFP attempts to raise the fighter's combat effectiveness. In combat a character hits if their d20 roll + attack bonus + environment mods is greater than the defending AC. 0-level types get no attack bonus. Non-fighter classes get a +1 attack bonus at 1st level and above. Fighters get a +2 attack at 1st level, increasing by +1 at each level thereafter. That makes fighters increasingly better at conventional combat than any other class.

Whether or not magic then bridges that gap I can't say.

And it still doesn't help with giving the fighter more to do than just fight.

 

[Imaro]

Well then it seems like the first step in creating a fighter that has more narrative tools would be to increase his access to skills... right?

 

[Alzrius]

And it still doesn't help with giving the fighter more to do than just fight.

I know that it doesn't; I'm suggesting that one school of thought in regards to this issue is that different characters are "balanced" by looking at giving them different degrees of narrative options in various narrative situations...in which case, a particularly high degree of narrative options in one particular situation (e.g. combat) is balanced by giving them very few narrative options in all other areas.

Now, the consensus here seems to be that that's not working, but I wonder how much of that is because non-fighter characters have comparatively de-valued the fighter's high degree of options in the combat narrative (as opposed to "that idea doesn't work because it's objectively better to have a moderate degree of narrative options across a broad range of narratives, rather than a very high degree of options for one narrative and extremely few in all others").

 

[Mike Eagling]

I know that it doesn't;

I wasn't disagreeing with you.

Perhaps "And it still doesn't help with..." would have been better worded "Not that it helps with..." ?