D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Micah Sweet]

It's pretty obvious that traditional simulationist play is pretty much the same as playing with your GI Joe dolls and narrativist play is enlightened and seeking a deeper understanding of the human psyche in a lot of the writing we see. If it wasn't for that persistent use of the terminology I'm not sure I would bother me much. But the clear subtext that some games are more enlightened, meaningful and meant for mature adults is why it matters to me.

I mean, I don't necessarily believe that the narrativist position believes this, but the implication really seems to come through in the language, and I think it's not hard to get that impression. Perhaps the fact that trad games came first (in general anyway) makes it seem like it was something the Narrativists "grew out of".

I should also note that, when people are offended, I feel the initial reaction should be to take it seriously and then examine it to check for validity.

 

[clearstream]

Starting with our working definition

I don't know what a cozy RPG is, but I'm not sold on the suggestion that a tea party cannot have rising conflict simply by virtue of it being a tea party. It obviously won't be the same kind of content rising conflict i'm accustomed to, but there's nothing inherent about tea parties that seem to preclude it?

One thing I'd add to definitions of "narrativism" game play is that it'd have been more clearly labelled "dramatism"; according to Kim, Edwards avoided it just to ensure disambiguation.

My reason is that the conception of narrative qualities (bar one) follows a Western dramatic tradition. That it should involve conflict, rise to a climax etc. One reason that matters is that Baker's fourth quality

Nobody pre-plans how it’s going to turn out.​

​

Can be readily applied to RPGs that are "not-narrativism", as illustrated in the way it is transformed among his reasons Muderous Ghosts is "not-narrativism". We're still playing to find out: all that changes is what. The quality of not pre-planning how it turns out can as readily be applied to what folk will label "simulationism". I see it as more - the less we find out what happens through play, the less we are playing game as game.

One could observe that we don't "play to find out" how a game of chess ends in the sense that it has a preordained end state (at least in part), but that misses the point. In chess, we play to find our how it ends that way... who will be on which side of that denouement? What's accurate in Baker's fourth quality is this

Play to let them pursue their passions. Play to find out how far they go, how they escalate, who comes out on top, who compromises, what they win, what it costs, what they prioritize, what they abandon.​

​

These are qualities that do differentiate "narrativism" from "simulationism" (or chess.) They're the sorts of things to be resolved only in play that make that play dramatic.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I just find the term GM decides to not capture the nuances around how the gm decides and how the players influence those decisions.

That is fair, have we come up with a better term? I may have missed it.

Also the gm decides plenty in narrative style style play as well

Oh you will get no argument from me there.
I just, after years of being an active participant, do not find that getting into those discussions yields much fruit.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, I don't necessarily believe that the narrativist position believes this, but the implication really seems to come through in the language, and I think it's not hard to get that impression. Perhaps the fact that trad games came first (in general anyway) makes it seem like it was something the Narrativists "grew out of".

I should also note that, when people are offended, I feel the initial reaction should be to take it seriously and then examine it to check for validity.

I've had people on this site tell me that if I would only try the narrative style of play, I would understand why it's so much better.

 

[AlViking]

I mean, I don't necessarily believe that the narrativist position believes this, but the implication really seems to come through in the language, and I think it's not hard to get that impression. Perhaps the fact that trad games came first (in general anyway) makes it seem like it was something the Narrativists "grew out of".

I should also note that, when people are offended, I feel the initial reaction should be to take it seriously and then examine it to check for validity.

I try hard not to lump people together into monolithic groups based on what some people say. I assume the majority of people who play narrative games play for much the same reasons I play more simulationist traditional games, we just have different preferences. But I agree that if someone tells me that something I say is offensive I'm not going to just say they're being too sensitive.

 

[Umbran]

Not RPGing, traditional and simulationist play. Other styles don't get the same treatment. Traditional play is "playing to find out what's in the DM's notes" or "Princess play," but narrative play isn't "Being overly concerned about character" or "children's story hour."

I have seen narrative play referred to as "story hour", just not in this thread.

In common parlance, narrative play gets called "not roleplaying", "story telling" and other derogatory things, too.

While any particular author may be biased in their approach - disparaging to some styles but not others - broadly speaking, all sides have disparaging ways they refer to each other's playstyle preferences, and we should not suggest otherwise. This behavior is typical to tribalism, and to any Us vs Them (or In-group vs Out-group) dynamic.

No playstyle choice completely filters for people so highly socially developed as to never take part in such shenanigans.

 

[Umbran]

I've had people on this site tell me that if I would only try the narrative style of play, I would understand why it's so much better.

I've had people on this site tell me that if only I would try <their preferred> playstyle, I would understand why it is so much better, even after I have said I enjoyed their preferred playstyle!

I recall being told that by both traditional and narrative play proponents... in the same thread.

 

[JConstantine]

Not everyone wants that lesson applied via a game mechanic that demands the situation be handled a certain way. Personally, my preference is for fairly casually-related advice. Having a mechanic you're supposed to use feels too hard-coded for my tastes.

Of course, if you like it yourself there's obviously nothing wrong with that.

Fail forward isn't a mechanic to be codified, simply a technique than can be employed (or not) as one sees fit. Granted, any given game could mechanise it - FFGSW/Genesys basically does with the failure with advantage dice result (though one thing I appreciate about the game is that it has mechanical options a group can fall back on if the creative juices aren't flowing) - but that isn't what @Faolyn is advocating. You appear to be reading more into her words than is actually there.
In the context of D&D, it's exactly the casual advice you claim to prefer. In my own 5e games, for example, sometimes I use fail forward, sometimes I have the dreaded "nothing happens", all depending on what seems most appropriate at the time.

 

[JConstantine]

That's why you're under the mistaken impression that it's like a train wreck/broken record. Like a working record, maybe, but not a broken one, and certainly not a train wreck.

This thread certainly goes right round, baby, right round.

 

[JConstantine]

I mean, you are asking him to coin new jargon here rather than using well understood terms from outside of the hobby - given the general tenor against academic terms and desire for casual communication, that seems counterproductive.

I have never heard the term "princess play" outside of that post. "Play pretend", "play make-believe" and "play dress-up" are what was common for me growing up (and all gender-neutral).