NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8625215" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I would say one of the best ways to identify a game's agenda is the following formula:1) What are the incentives/reward structures for "good play" by players?2) What is the impetus for and shape of the GM's opposition to the players?  Or is there really even opposition?3) What is the nature of the procedures to get from incentive structure > GM opposition > reward?I think if you cleanly evaluate those three things, they're going to tell you pretty much everything you need to know about the G about the S and about the N of the game that you're playing.Just to keep this pithy and hopefully provide a decisive cleaving of the difference between Narrativist/Story Now games and a certain other type of approach to play that yields "story", here is a statement with respect to the above:* If your answer in 2 is "there isn't really opposition...we're telling a story together" OR "the opposition is just neutral refereeing, exclusively to play a 'living/breathing world and the players can do whatever they want" OR "the players will inevitably win...I'm just here to curate play so that their winning highlights their preconception of character in the most awesome way possible" OR "my opposition is that of the constituent parts of a preconceived metaplot and a high resolution setting that they're touring while we move through the metaplot", OR any configuration thereof then you're not playing a Story Now/Narrativist game.  Which is totally cool.  There are a lot of ways to skin an RPG cat.  It just means that the particular way you're skinning the cat isn't of the Story Now/Narrativist variety.GMing a Narrativist/Story Now game requires (a) a crisp understanding of the nature of a brand of focused and intense opposition to the players (and this requires other aspects of system such as a certain sort of PC build + incentive structures as a rider), (b) an aggressive instantiation of that at all times, and (c) codified principles and procedures that ensure the whole thing works (works in this case meaning (i) player evinced dramatic needs/game's premise + (ii) honest, focused, and aggressive opposition by GM + (iii) resolution procedures that honors player's input by giving system its say and constraining focusing the GM's move-space + (iv) incentive structures that are coherent with (i - iii) ).</blockquote>

Verification