Agree completely. But I'd add - at least in the games I like to play and GM, the 20th level PCs very rarely interact with common bandits. Rather, they interact with angels, demons, liches etc.
Non-combat encounter playstyle preferences
- Thread starter pemerton
- Start date
LostSoul, thanks for stopping by my thread!
I've been pretty heavily influenced in the way I approach my 4e GMing by the stuff you were posting about a year or so ago (on your Shadowfell thread, for example). From some of your more recent posts, you seem to have moved to a different sort of approach. Would you be able to say a bit more about why?
Barastrondo
First Post
I actually wonder if it's possible to separate them at all. As you note, the "modern" version is based on encounter-building guidelines. The "traditional" version seems more of a response to players deciding to turn something into an encounter: climbing walls in town where you hadn't planned to place an encounter for instance. I don't think there are very many people who use the "modern" version when not placing things specifically designed to challenge the PCs, though I could be wrong.
What is a difference that makes no difference? As far as I see, the single great departure from "traditional" games is precisely that decision to divorce the dice- (or card- or whatever-) game from the meanings of things in the secondary world.pemerton said:
I found decades ago that the notion of representing "dramatic values" as mere abstract numbers isolated from any actual "story" ended up being just that: an abstraction really no more compelling than Gin Rummy or what have you (indeed, if even so much).
It is the rules of Story themselves -- which can be quite particular to the sub-domain at hand -- that demand attention. To the degree (and there always is one) that the regime is realistic, so should be the game-model. To revolt against "realism" as something somehow apart is, I think, a great misstep that leads to rejection of the essential fictional world and its dynamics altogether.
Those Laws of the Nature of a given realm are what really need implementation. They themselves should, in my opinion, pose the causes and consequences of game events if one is really shooting for a game "about" such narrative. "When in Rome", indeed -- and just so when in the Asphalt Jungle, or at High Noon, or Beyond the Fields We Know.
LostSoul
Adventurer
Probably not! I'm not sure why my approach has changed; it could be because I was able to put my thumb on why I don't like "narration sharing" in some games. This may have led to wanting more concrete details in the game world, thus being able to manipulate them, thus seeing limitations in the structure of x successes before y failures.
I started thinking about how to modify skill challenges. The easiest solution was to think about complexity as a factor of the opposing character instead of a meta-game factor.
Right now I have a table for determining complexity when dealing with NPCs; I'm not sure about challenges with the environment, but I'm thinking that setting a number of tasks that need to be accomplished before the challenge is completed is what I'm going to go with.
Here is the table; it's part of the encounter guide in my hack, based on B/X:
Code:
3. Reaction Roll
If the monster's disposition to the PCs is unknown, roll on the
following table to determine their reaction.
2d6 Roll Reaction Success
2 Immediate Attack --
3-5 Hostile, possible attack 8
6-8 Uncertain, monster confused 6
9-11 No attack, monster leaves or considers offers 4
12 Looking to make friends 2The "Success" column determines the complexity of the challenge, if there is one.
My issues with "narration sharing" (and the term) are best explained here: The pitfalls of narrative technique in rpg play « Game Design is about Structure This mostly came about during a Burning Wheel game I played in the first half of '09.
Doug McCrae
Legend
Interesting article. Narrativist games such as Sorcerer and Dogs in the Vineyard are a lot more traditional than I thought they were. They seem to be basically ordinary rpgs but with the boring crap removed - haggling with merchants, determining watch order, etc. Only the big, dramatic, meaningful scenes are left in.
ExploderWizard
Hero
How is a big, dramatic, meaningful scene determined? Part of the fun of an unscripted game is that even the DM doesn't know what encounters might be any or all of the above until it plays out.
As a DM I don't "plan" haggling scenes with merchants or casual conversations with city guards. The players initiate these things which may become important or just a minor aside interaction depending on what happens.
I don't "fast forward" the game toward certain scenes and situations. The players can certainly do so if they wish since they largely control the pace of things.
Um, you can't have "all drama, all the time" anyway. People like to have pacing; the high points and the low points add to the content of the game.
To use an analogy, it doesn't matter how much you like cheesecake- if all you eat is cheesecake, you are going to get sick of it.
On narrative sharing- you can avoid some of the pitfalls of it and keep the excitement if you do a bit of information control. Don't let players make challenges and conflicts for their own characters. Or if they do, they can only define those conflicts and challenges if broad terms. Work with the other players to construct the challenge/conflict for a PC. Cooperation is an invaluable tool, and 4 heads are certainly going to come up with a more compelling and interesting plot than your 1.
In this fashion, a player can enjoy the excitement of experiencing the unknown while still being able to contribute to the overall plot.
To use an analogy, it doesn't matter how much you like cheesecake- if all you eat is cheesecake, you are going to get sick of it.
On narrative sharing- you can avoid some of the pitfalls of it and keep the excitement if you do a bit of information control. Don't let players make challenges and conflicts for their own characters. Or if they do, they can only define those conflicts and challenges if broad terms. Work with the other players to construct the challenge/conflict for a PC. Cooperation is an invaluable tool, and 4 heads are certainly going to come up with a more compelling and interesting plot than your 1.
In this fashion, a player can enjoy the excitement of experiencing the unknown while still being able to contribute to the overall plot.
LostSoul
Adventurer
Sorcerer, Dogs, Burning Wheel, and The Shadow of Yesterday are all pretty similar - they rely on some pre-game focus being set (Kickers and the definition of Humanity in Sorcerer, the Town Creation in Dogs, Beliefs in Burning Wheel, and Keys in TSoY), usually by the players; this provides the group and the DM with an idea of what the players want to focus on. When you play you focus on those things and those are your dramatic scenes.
You wouldn't spend time chatting with city guards in Sorcerer unless it had something to do with your Kicker and/or Humanity.
These games are unscripted - they would not work if they were. If someone (anyone, either player or DM) determines how a PC's Kicker/Belief/Key is resolved (or how the trouble in town is resolved) before play, when the point of the game is to see how it gets resolved and changes the character through that, why play through it?
I was playtesting my 4E hack tonight and I approached the situation totally differently - because we've got a different agenda with these games. I told the player where the PCs were, what they saw and heard, and let the player decide what to do with that information. We ended up with a lot of minor RP - talking to farmers to get the general situation, chatting with an apprentice blacksmith, buying herbal rat repellent from the hippie herbalist.
The PCs would do something, I'd describe what happened; if we needed to we'd roll the dice. Once the PC's action is resolved, I'd ask the player what the PCs were going to do from there on. I let the player set the pace of the game.
In this game all that matters because there are important decisions to be made and important information to gather. The player has to be the one to set the pace because the pace he sets is another important choice. If he had decided to keep watch on the town at night instead of just going to bed he would have seen someone slip out of town.
LostSoul, thanks for the replies. I saw that blog about narration sharing when I followed an earlier link you'd made to it (on a Fate Point thread, I think).
Doug, I don't think it's just the boring stuff removed. I also think it's about letting the mechanics reflect what is thematically important to the players, even where that departs from the likelihoods that would result from ingame cause-and-effect. Ie, assuming I've understood him right, the opposite of what Ariosto said about half-a-dozen posts back. (This relates back to the "save the PCs" thread that's still ongoing.)
Doug, I don't think it's just the boring stuff removed. I also think it's about letting the mechanics reflect what is thematically important to the players, even where that departs from the likelihoods that would result from ingame cause-and-effect. Ie, assuming I've understood him right, the opposite of what Ariosto said about half-a-dozen posts back. (This relates back to the "save the PCs" thread that's still ongoing.)
