The Story Now Discussion

[Campbell]

@Fenris-77

I'll hit you up after work. This is something that's going to require significant time to elaborate on.

 

[pemerton]

I would not call Monster of the Week as typically played a Story Now game. It uses techniques curbed from Story Now games, but the actual creative agenda at play is pretty much traditional.

Here's an excerpt from Edwards' Story Now essay (not that I love it, but that's word we're using)

<snip>

I think this maps to MotW and a lot of PbtA games very well. Maybe you could be more specific about why you think it doesn't fit?

I'm going to have a go at being @Campbell. If I'm wrong he'll tell us both!

In another recent thread the distinction was drawn between "winging it" - as in, the GM makes stuff up as s/he goes along but with the status and purpose of that stuff being functionally comparable to pre-prepared notes - and "no myth story now" where the function of the stuff the GM makes up is different, because made up according to different principles which put the focus on these characters in this situation facing this challenge to their own needs and desires.

I'm guessing that Campbell sees MotW as more like the first - I'm going to guess with robust mechanics to support the improv - rather than the second. Cthulhu Dark could probably be played like that too.

 

[pemerton]

@Fenris-77

I'll hit you up after work. This is something that's going to require significant time to elaborate on.

Oops, missed that reply. I've had a guess at what you might have in mind based on other recent threads/posts. Hope not to have imputed too much nonsense to you!

 

[prabe]

If mystery/whodunnit RPGing gets defined as the players resolve the GM's pre-authored plot, by engaging the fiction the GM has pre-authored and generating the narration from the GM that will reveal the necessary puzzle pieces - eg classic CoC modules are like this - then I think by definition it can't be done in Story Now.

The couple of times my group has played Cthulhu Dark it's been relatively light-hearted and with somewhat cardboard cut-out PCs: the journalist, the legal secretary, the English butler, the longshoreman, etc. So their dramatic needs and struggles are not too complicated. But I think you're right that it has been what does the mystery mean for these PCs that has tended to be the focus of things. We've had the PCs enmeshed in the mystery - they've not been external to it and brought in simply as investigators.

In that sense it has been (unsurprisingly) more like HPL's own Call of Cthulhu than a hardboiled detective story. I reckon that could be fun, and could also be done Story Now style, but you'd need a slightly more developed protagonist I think so that the right noir elements can be introduced to draw them in.

I am inclined to emphatically agree that one could replicate a noir (or hard-boiled) story with Story Now techniques and mechanics, easily. The focus on emerging twists and betrayals seems to fit well.

I think whether one can do a whodunnit in Story Now will probably depend on the pleasures the players want from it. If they're more interested in using the mystery to explore their characters, Story Now seems to me as though it'll work well; if they're more interested in figuring out the mystery, I think there's something of a mismatch.

I have quarreled with you for describing some sorts of TRPGs as, IIRC, "RPG-as-puzzle," but if the players really want the figuring-it-out pleasure of a whodunit, I think that's pretty much what the game needs to be--at least for that adventure.

 

[JonM]

What system are you planning to use?

Probably Scum & Villainy, since I keep meaning to try it. Not for constant investigations, I mean, but for occasionally having one. Dungeon World has been my primary Story Now experience, so far, even if I didn't think of it as such, at the time, but S&V would bring me more interestingly out of my comfort zone.

Having said that, Sentinels Comics RPG keeps sitting there, saying "Play me!" so.... That was one reason I was interested in the Story Now superhero possibilities.

 

[Arilyn]

Monster of the Week is a PbtA mystery game that works just fine. The GM has a basic countdown running in the background (things getting worse) and a handful of NPCs and Locations roughed out, and everything else is the PCs and the 'mystery' that unfolds isn't preplotted at all (and you are told specifically not to preplot anything). It works in part because the moving parts, Monster, NPCs, and Locations are all specifically described in terms of what their function in the game is, or motivation, so you have a built-in idea what that thing does when it's button gets pressed, or when it does something in the background. I think MotW is an excellent example of a clearly laid out framework for running Story Now mysteries.

This is the kind of structure I plan on using with my Liminal game. The game is full of factions and interesting npc hooks that can be scattered around the United Kingdom and unfold depending on the player characters and time.

Loose but available to come into sharper focus, depending on play.

Story Now but not No Myth? I'm a little vague on No Myth.

 

[Fenris-77]

@Fenris-77

I'll hit you up after work. This is something that's going to require significant time to elaborate on.

Sounds good. I'll be the first one to admit that I never paid much nevermind to Forge theory, so there be nuance that I'm missing.

 

[pemerton]

I'm a little vague on No Myth.

No Myth means no established fiction beyond what is established in play. Genre becomes important.

Although the phrase seems absolute - NO myth - I think we can talk in degrees. In my Classic Traveller game there was not just sci-fi genre but the implied backstory of space pirates, and Imperium, etc. In my Burning Wheel game I started the PCs in Hardby and showed them the GH map which establishes forests for the elves, hills for the dwarves, the Bright Desert for the mysterious nomads, etc.

A literal no myth game I ran was Cortex+ Heroic Vikings. We started with PCs as Vikings and built everything else from there.

No Myth contrasts with (say) Glorantha-based HeroWars/Quest where there is a lot of established backstory and part of the pleasure of play is everyone drawing on it. The closest I've come to this is 4e D&D, and there the myth was much less than in a Glorantha game. DitV is also not No Myth given that the GM needs to set up towns and (like @Campbell mentioned upthread) might have preconceived notions of who is doing what to whom that has caused the problems of sin in the town.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm going to have a go at being @Campbell. If I'm wrong he'll tell us both!

In another recent thread the distinction was drawn between "winging it" - as in, the GM makes stuff up as s/he goes along but with the status and purpose of that stuff being functionally comparable to pre-prepared notes - and "no myth story now" where the function of the stuff the GM makes up is different, because made up according to different principles which put the focus on these characters in this situation facing this challenge to their own needs and desires.

I'm guessing that Campbell sees MotW as more like the first - I'm going to guess with robust mechanics to support the improv - rather than the second. Cthulhu Dark could probably be played like that too.

MotW, much like many PbtA games, is actually pretty focused on the characters in that situation rather the former example. The design of the playbooks makes this pretty apparent. Obviously you could run MotW either way, IMO anyway, but running the first way is working against the design.

 

[JonM]

Maybe instead of a lair, the mystery itself would have a playbook or sheet. The mystery sheet would have different aspects of the mystery that they could then select what to engage, discover, unlock, or work towards. The actual outcomes could involve either oracles or some variety of character tie-in from their own playbooks. Clocks could apply pressure and complications to the investigation.

I'm also reminded, for example, of a mystery in a Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures regarding angered fey. The NPC "whodunnit," whether intentionally or not, comes from the GM putting in NPCs from the village (usually determined by players creating their characters and generating NPCs) into a table and then rolling that.

This really intrigued me. I'm still mulling it over, trying to see how best it could be accomplished, but it sure feels like there is something workable, here.