D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[Celebrim]

I don't know what a narrative game is.

This is a good point. It's probably best to not begin a discussion without defining terms. I was assuming that "narrative game" referred to games that were influenced by the narrativist viewpoint of GNS theory, but this could be incorrect.

Narrativist games do not necessarily resolve things on a meta level or ignore 'the internal elements of the fiction'.

I don't think they ignore the "internal elements of the fiction" but they certainly relate to them differently and don't treat them as the sole inputs when determining outcome.

Perhaps you can name some specific games you are talking about here.

Hillfolk, Fiasco, Sorcerer, maybe FATE Core would qualify. Obviously, there is a bit of a spectrum here. I hear some people calling "Blades in the Dark" a narrative game, and I can't buy into that, but perhaps I just assume they mean "narrativist" when they have some other definition. "Narrative" is a very loosely thrown around term much like "cinematic".

A game published in 1984 is typical of the games that arose out of the big plot heavy story telling elements of the 1990s? Do I understand you correctly?

In one of his early essays explaining the Narrativist philosophy Ron Edwards cited this rule as evidence of narrativist design in RPGs from as early as 1984. I think if you would look at the context of what you are quoting, I said modern narrative games arose as a reaction to big plot heavy story telling elements of the 1990s - think 2e D&D with its gamified novels or particularly Vampire:The Masquerade's published scenarios or even in some cases published adventures for Shadowrun. I didn't say Toon arose in reaction to it. What I said was:

"The idea then was to make new mechanics that resolved not according to a process that depended on the internal elements of the fiction, but rather on elements of the meta such as "what is the goal of this scene". The typical example of a rule of this type is the metarule in Toon that said, "If it is funny, it works."

"Rule of this type" refers to "mechanics...that depended on elements of the meta" and not to "games that arose in response to failures of plot heavy games of the 1990s".

This is completely wrong. An essential ingredient of narrativist play (and gamist play) is that the mechanics resolve things without bias...

That's not true at all. In narrativist play the participants are all expected to do what is best to deliver the story now. The narrativist referee is explicitly not the passive referee of trad play delivering unbiased judgments according to the cold logic of the scenario, but rather doing his best to always bring the drama. The narrativist referee invents new problems and complications on the spot without referencing the established fiction purely to make the scene more dramatic. That's strongly encouraged by narrative games.

rather than having a GM use force to veto or fudge outcomes. Narrative currency is not GM force, narrative currency is mechanics.

I think you are mistaking dice rolling with narrative force. Narrative force is who gets to say what is true about the fiction. In a true narrative game you are rolling not to determine the outcome of the action, but for the right to play out the scene. For example, in typical narrative mechanics two participants (one of which may be the GM) have a disagreement about how a scene will play out and they each give their preferred outcome ("the stake") and then they use some fortune mechanic influenced by narrative currency to determine whose vision for the scene will play out.

 

[pemerton]

An essential ingredient of narrativist play (and gamist play) is that the mechanics resolve things without bias, rather than having a GM use force to veto or fudge outcomes. Narrative currency is not GM force, narrative currency is mechanics.

Also, "narrative currency" is generally used to refer to things like Fate Points in Fate. Which are not a part of Apocalypse World (the best-known narrativist RPG); and which don't work the same way in games like Burning Wheel as they do in Fate. The sort of play that Fate best supports would, in the Forge lexicon, be described as High Concept Simulationism, not Narrativism.

 

[kermit4karate]

It does, like I said, ruin the game.

If your the type of DM that is fine with players doing that randomly......then have fun. Other DMs don't have as much fun letting the players ruin the game on a whim.

And, note the "sorry guys" has a bad ring to it. Far too many players will think of that person as a Bad DM, if they do that. A lot of players see any sort of weakness as being a bad DM.

It is also the classic: the players force or trick the DM into doing improv as they think the game will be better somehow or they just want to annoy the DM.

Gotta be honest, I've never had a player ruin one of my games. Like, no one in real life has ever said, "You're railroading!" even though people here have said I do. No one has argued against my interpretation of spell variability (magic is unpredictable) or how my monsters differ from those in the MM (stat blocks aren't gospel).

I decide how a dragon's breath weapon works, whether orcs can track elves by scent, how quickly a particular troll regenerates or whether Magic Missiles can bounce. I decide how many dice a player has to roll for damage when they fall down a 50-foot crevasse. (IMO, a player should always be a little afraid to leap across a dark ravine, and I don't care if someone writes a 1,000-word essay about it.)

To the DMs of the world, take back your power!! Rulings before rules! People need structure, even when bloggers and podcasters say they don't. Be the sheriff of Table Town!!

Put down the rulebook, and be the benevolent dictator humanity deserves.

Now, bring on the hate, and I shall drink it like manna from heaven.

 

[soviet]

This is a good point. It's probably best to not begin a discussion without defining terms. I was assuming that "narrative game" referred to games that were influenced by the narrativist viewpoint of GNS theory, but this could be incorrect.

Well, this is a strange phenomenon. The correct term is narrativism, and narrativism supporting games. Whenever I see the term 'narrative games' it's nearly always used by someone who isn't very familiar with them and is mainly describing them as an 'other' that does things they don't like. No-one that plays these games calls them 'narrative' except if they are discussing them with such a person and have chosen to echo their language for ease of conversation.

So, I'm never super clear whether people that say 'narrative' mean 'narrativism', or whether they just mean some shapeless mass of 'other' games that do weird things they don't like.

I don't think they ignore the "internal elements of the fiction" but they certainly relate to them differently and don't treat them as the sole inputs when determining outcome.

I don't really know what this means.

That's not true at all. In narrativist play the participants are all expected to do what is best to deliver the story now. The narrativist referee is explicitly not the passive referee of trad play delivering unbiased judgments according to the cold logic of the scenario, but rather doing his best to always bring the drama. The narrativist referee invents new problems and complications on the spot without referencing the established fiction purely to make the scene more dramatic. That's strongly encouraged by narrative games.

I don't think this is true.

I think you are mistaking dice rolling with narrative force. Narrative force is who gets to say what is true about the fiction. In a true narrative game you are rolling not to determine the outcome of the action, but for the right to play out the scene. For example, in typical narrative mechanics two participants (one of which may be the GM) have a disagreement about how a scene will play out and they each give their preferred outcome ("the stake") and then they use some fortune mechanic influenced by narrative currency to determine whose vision for the scene will play out.

This isn't rolling for the right to play out the scene. That to me implies something like passing the conch, where if you win the dice roll you now get to say a load of stuff and, for want of a better term, write the next part of the story. None of the narrativist games I am familiar with work like that. In the games I know, the roll (even with explicit stake setting) is very much rooted in the fictional positioning that has already been established.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It does, like I said, ruin the game.

It does not. Unless the GM is a control freak, I guess.

If your the type of DM that is fine with players doing that randomly......then have fun. Other DMs don't have as much fun letting the players ruin the game on a whim.

Why do you insert the "randomly"? That was never mentioned. You are inserting ideas, specifically player-hostile and antagonistic ideas, for no reason; the post quoted certainly doesn't give the slightest reason to do so.

And, note the "sorry guys" has a bad ring to it. Far too many players will think of that person as a Bad DM, if they do that. A lot of players see any sort of weakness as being a bad DM.

No, they don't. This is the fantasy you've concocted. It has nothing to do with reality.

Players are not sharks circling, waiting for a moment to strike. Your caricatures are wildly exaggerated.

It is also the classic: the players force or trick the DM into doing improv as they think the game will be better somehow or they just want to annoy the DM.

I've literally never heard of this, nor anything like this, from anyone but you. Ever.

There are numerous people in this thread who have repeatedly advised me to stop taking your posts seriously. I do still take them seriously--I just think you are flat-out wrong, amongst other issues, and that that drives an agenda I strongly disapprove of.

 

[pemerton]

This isn't rolling for the right to play out the scene. That to me implies something like passing the conch, where if you win the dice roll you now get to say a load of stuff and, for want of a better term, write the next part of the story. None of the narrativist games I am familiar with work like that. In the games I know, the roll (even with explicit stake setting) is very much rooted in the fictional positioning that has already been established.

A really good discussion of this point is this Eero Tuovinen blog: The pitfalls of narrative technique in rpg play

EDIT: not to mention the collected blogs of Vincent Baker, especially his discussion of the importance of rightward arrows (ie from clouds to boxes).

 

[Celebrim]

I don't really know what this means.

I mean if I'm engaged in Trad Play it doesn't matter if I think the scene would get cooler if even more orcs showed up from the next room when the text says the next room is empty. Considerations about what would be "cool" or "exciting" don't come into play. In Trad Play you are trying to simulate a world based on its internal fiction. In narratives play, that's not true at all.

I don't think this is true.

Guess the game:

"...don’t get too bogged down trying to maintain absolute consistency in the world or adhere to a draconian sense of realism. The game operates by the rules of drama and fiction; use that to your advantage. There should be very few moments in the game where the PCs are free of conflicts or problems to deal with, even if it’d be more “realistic” for them to get a long breather. When you’re trying to decide what happens, and the answer that makes the most sense is also kind of boring, go with something that’s
more exciting than sensible! You can always find a way later on to justify something that doesn’t make immediate sense."

" Rather than “modeling the world” or going for “realism,” try setting difficulties according to dramatic necessity—things should generally be more challenging when the stakes are high and less challenging when they aren’t."

"Story time is what we call the time as the characters perceive it, from the perspective of being “in the story”—the amount of time it takes for them to accomplish any of the stuff you and the players say that they do during play. Most of the time, you’ll do this as an afterthought,"

"you have to take care that you’re proposing complications of sufficient dramatic weight. Stay away from superficial consequences that don’t really affect the character except to provide color for the scene. If you can’t think of an immediate, tangible way
that the complication changes what’s going on in the game, you probably need to turn up the heat. If someone doesn’t go “oh crap” or give a similar visceral reaction, you probably need to turn up the heat."

If you guessed 1e AD&D or some OSR clone of it, then I don't know what to say to you. This is the opposite of old school approaches to play. This is actively anti-Gygaxian. So to suggest that this game and an OSR game have the same philosophy seems a bit strange to me.

And the game in question is one which I would consider on the low end of the narrativist spectrum with a reasonable amount of trad play influence.

Spoiler

Fate Core

This isn't rolling for the right to play out the scene. That to me implies something like passing the conch, where if you win the dice roll you now get to say a load of stuff and, for want of a better term, write the next part of the story. None of the narrativist games I am familiar with work like that. In the games I know, the roll (even with explicit stake setting) is very much rooted in the fictional positioning that has already been established.

Conch passing as you call it will show up in some narrativist games. Which narrativist games are you familiar with?

 

[TwoSix]

And, note the "sorry guys" has a bad ring to it. Far too many players will think of that person as a Bad DM, if they do that. A lot of players see any sort of weakness as being a bad DM.

Then don't play with them?

I don't need to prove myself to a group of players. Either they like how I DM, and the game works, or they don't like it and the game fails.

 

[TwoSix]

Also, "narrative currency" is generally used to refer to things like Fate Points in Fate. Which are not a part of Apocalypse World (the best-known narrativist RPG); and which don't work the same way in games like Burning Wheel as they do in Fate. The sort of play that Fate best supports would, in the Forge lexicon, be described as High Concept Simulationism, not Narrativism.

Agreed. A game where the players create freeform descriptors for their characters (like Fate Aspects, or Experiences in Daggerheart, or the One Unique Thing in 13th Age, off the top of my head) are about delegating the players more backstory authority to flag elements they want to see in play. It's pretty orthogonal to narrativism.

 

[pemerton]

Then don't play with them?

I don't need to prove myself to a group of players. Either they like how I DM, and the game works, or they don't like it and the game fails.

I hope it's OK if I elaborate a bit on this point.

Even the most classic, pawn-stance approach to D&D depends upon a type of "creative synergy" between the players and the GM: namely, if the game is to work, the players must find the ideas of the GM - the clever maps, the ingenious and occasionally vicious tricks, etc - compelling. Or, at least, engaging. If the puzzles the players are looking to solve are not the same ones the GM is interested in, and/or able to, present to them, then the game will be flat at best.

In GM-as-stortyeller play - a type of RPGing that seems highly salient in The Great Railroad Thread - then the game will not work well, will be flat at best, if the players are not interested in the story the GM has to tell, and are not prepared to weather the GM's creative foibles. Likewise in the variant approach wherein, rather than being a storyteller, the GM is a "world guide": if the players aren't interested in the GM's vision of a world, and are not prepared to weather the GM's creative foibles as world-builder, then the game will not be a success.

A lot of D&D play has a competitive dimension to it: the players try to beat the dungeon, or solve the mystery, or succeed at the quest. Even in heavily GM-driven play, it's still often the case that the players can make better or worse choices, where "better" and "worse" mean is more or less likely to prompt the GM to reveal the story/world in the most engaging, cogent and player-rewarding manner. But the game won't work if there is competition at the creative level. If participants aren't taking pleasure in what one another are bringing to the table, then they seriously need to think about going their separate ways.