"The term 'GNS' is moronic and annoying" – well this should be an interesting interview

[pemerton]

Can you write out an example or two to illustrate what you mean? I’m interested specifically in how the attempt at organic mechanics fails.

I'm thinking of Rolemaster.

As one example: the resolution mechanics generate a lot of detailed injury, which then interface with the healing rules. Both natural healing and magical healing have detailed rules. Natural healing depends on the nature and severity of the injury. There are also rules for determining whether an injury brings ongoing nerve damage with it. Magical healing is spread over five main spell lists (Concussion Healing for bruises, burns, frost bite, and concussion hit point loss; Blood Healing for ongoing bleeding; Bone Healing for injuries to bones and cartilage; Muscle Healing for damage to muscles and tendons; Nerve and Organ Healing for nerve damage and injured organs - and each spell list has many spells on it).

The effect of all this is to have a very clear sense of how a person has been hurt, and how they are recovering. In this way, the "simulationist" goal is served.

But it is not very interesting. It is extremely technical, requires careful application of the relevant rules, and also tracking of the passage of time. And whereas systems like Burning Wheel and Torchbearer have somewhat systematic ways for handling the passage of time (eg Lifestyle tests, training), Rolemaster does not - the GM has to manage the passage of time with the same resources that the game provides for handling random encounters in an "adventuring" context.

In stark contrast to this sort of approach to injury and recovery is Prince Valiant, which has, as its core recovery rule, the GM decides how long it takes. And which has no elements (like healing or recovery of spell points) that makes the tracking of time matter as anything other than colour.

There is nothing less realistic, as far as fighting and injury are concerned, about the fiction we create in Prince Valiant than the fiction we create in Rolemaster - eg, when a PC knight was run through the shoulder by a skeleton lord's magic two-handed sword, his recovery took a long time. And it doesn't create long periods of uninteresting calculation and technical reasoning at the table. But it is all done by GM stipulation, not "organically/emergently".

Does that give you a sense of what I have in mind?

 

[Emberashh]

You don't think there are mutually exclusive priorities?

Nope.

No, they don't? There's nothing about tacticality that fundamentally requires it being slow. It's a difficult problem in tabletop space (although, no, it's not particularly difficult either, it's just TTRPGs consistently find the slowest solutions for some reason), but certainly not a cursed one.

Well thats my point. I picked that one because its what I've observed people call a "cursed" problem in regards to RPGs specifically.

Tactical combat vs, say, combat that evokes feelings of chaos and randomness like you gamble your life in a casino, though, is cursed, because one inherently excludes the other.

Not at all. Thats again just another where it just depends on how you do it. Tactical combat doesn't have to be sterile and predictable.

 

[thefutilist]

Does that give you a sense of what I have in mind?

Yeah that’s a good example. There’s always a trade-off between granularity and dramatic stuff. I think everyone should track time and space (in most but not all games), it’s just the more exactly that you do it, the more it limits the potential for drama. Same with resolution by pre-established fact, some amount is good but if you have too much it kills the ability to address theme.

I think my natural tracking of time/space within a scene is always relative to something else. ‘If you hold them off for long enough you can get the safe open’, long enough probably means a dice roll to do it and as soon as a system tells me to count units of actual time or space I recoil in fear.

 

[Emberashh]

Can you write out an example or two to illustrate what you mean? I’m interested specifically in how the attempt at organic mechanics fails.

Pretty sure they just think Rolemaster is boring (it kind of is). A game can just be boring to someone, but for those for whom it isn't, the stories it can generate are not.

Its like when I talk about DayZ. Plenty of people find it boring and its unflatteringly called a jogging simulator. But as someone whose very in tune with what makes DayZ absolutely amazing, that same aspect is a plus and vital to exactly why its so great.

The meditative lull you can slip into after hours of running around Chernarus is exactly what makes the few moments of action turn into moments of sheer, genuine, terror, in a way that basically none of its derivatives never understood how to replicate.

There's practically no other experience out there where the prospect of being beaten to death with a can of beans, absurd as it is, is something thats paired with feelings of visceral terror. Those kinds of stories don't come as a result of any attempt to force in "interesting fiction", but they do require people actually play the game as intended and embrace it for what it is.

And if that still ends up boring so be it, but that doesn't really put the want for interesting stories at odds with emergent narratives. All games tell emergent narratives, inherently, by virtue of being games. Its not something you can actually eliminate.

 

[thefutilist]

All games tell emergent narratives, inherently, by virtue of being games. Its not something you can actually eliminate.

Well the issue with emergent story in Narrativist terms, is that it’s a form of ‘story after’. Narrativists basically don’t care about emergent narratives. As you say, all games produce an emergent narrative.

 

[Emberashh]

Well the issue with emergent story in Narrativist terms, is that it’s a form of ‘story after’. Narrativists basically don’t care about emergent narratives. As you say, all games produce an emergent narrative.

Narrativists also say they dont care about telling stories or having plots, depending on the current argument.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would argue that most tables could find happiness just by switching up players, eliminating the "one player" that people don't gel with, inviting new players, or taking on a new DM.

And if the players were all interchangeable in terms of your relationship with them and degree of emotional connection, that would work great. But of course that's not real life.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As I noted in another post - there is a difference between design and art, and you've hit it.

I don't know...the word "design" does not have within it the need to poll the public. Folks can come up with good ideas, executed well, that other people enjoy, without getting the public thoughts beforehand.

 

[Scott Christian]

And if the players were all interchangeable in terms of your relationship with them and degree of emotional connection, that would work great. But of course that's not real life.

You're right. But many times, it can work out like I suggested. Sometimes tables can take on a new DM. Sometimes they can switch a single player or a few players after the campaign ends. That is real life too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well the issue with emergent story in Narrativist terms, is that it’s a form of ‘story after’. Narrativists basically don’t care about emergent narratives. As you say, all games produce an emergent narrative.

A big reason why Narrativist games don't appeal to everyone. It's narrative-pushing mechanics can interfere with emergent narrative, which some prefer.