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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SweeneyTodd" data-source="post: 2670035" data-attributes="member: 9391">Oof. Dude, I wouldn't phrase this in terms of GNS theory. That's a total quagmire that you really don't want to get into, trust me. I've seen tons of flame wars where people got up in arms about "being labeled" or something. Also, GNS isn't a predictive taxonomy (in that no game or player ever fits into just one, all the time), and it's really easy for it to be read that way.There's a really, really good summary of GNS at <a href="http://www.lumpley.com/hardcore.html#3" target="_blank">http://www.lumpley.com/hardcore.html#3</a> . I think it's a lot more digestible.Also, I apologize in advance for seeming pedantic, but you've got Narrativist totally wrong. Let me take a shot at it."Narrativism" was a poorly chosen name, I think, because it's referring to a very specific definition of "narrative" -- not just a story, but a series of events in which characters make decisions that address a Premise. It really should have been called "Themeism" or something.A Premise is basically a theme. Lots of fiction has a theme, whether it's love, responsibility to family, upholding an ideal, whatever. If Theme is an statement (like, "Family is more important than duty"), then Premise is a question (like "Is family more important than duty?"). You answer those questions by seeing what the characters do in situations where they have to choose. That's the core of it.That's very different from "tell an entertaining story", especially because you absolutely kill address of Premise if you railroad. Players have to be free to make their characters take in-game actions that are relevant to Premise. Otherwise, you've got the GM imposing a theme, which is almost the opposite thing. (For example, that bit about the game going Narrativist if the GM isn't impartial as they pursue their goals is backwards. You have to remain impartial, so the choice is in their hands. Otherwise it's Sim with a GM-injected theme.)(Now if by "railroading" you mean "aggressive scene framing", that's different. I totally have put characters into situations where they had to, say, choose between duty and family. But once they were there, I stepped back and let them decide what to do.)Or to put it another way: See those Keys that Sweet20 has? If the group makes characters and assigns them Keys, and the scenes that happen in the game relate to those Keys (which they should, or else you're not using the system), then play is about stuff like "Damn, John's in a situation where either he pursues the Key of the Vow and breaks the Key of Fraternity, or vice versa. What the hell is he gonna do?" That's Narrativism, basically. (And if you fudge the dice during that scene? The player was robbed, because you answered for him.)Again, just trying to be helpful. I'd consider just talking about gaming styles without jargon. Like, "Keys would only really work in certain types of games, where you want play to focus around the stuff you've chosen as Keys. I'd use them to help decide what kinds of scenes happen in game, so it'd be my responsibility to make sure leveling up is fair, same as in regular D20. But if we don't want to play that kind of game, then we wouldn't want to use them."The thing is, certain kinds of rules will encourage or support certain kinds of play. (That's very different from "neutral" rules like "How much can I lift" or "How far can I jump".) Those rules won't help you if you don't want to play in a style they support -- in which case you just wouldn't adopt them.</blockquote>

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