Trying to Describe "Narrative-Style Gameplay" to a Current Player in Real-World Terms

[TwoSix]

The catch I think, is that not everybody plays games for reasons that are compatible with every form of game, and when OP (who I'm seeming tougher on than I am, but they're standing in for everyone with the expectations they expressed, sorry about that) says "let's play a Star Wars Roleplaying Game" that doesn't really communicate any of this other stuff about the stance you should be in, and the player might've stopped OP up front and adjusted expectations had they known it was coming.

Op thought it meant "we'll emulate a star wars narrative!"

and the player thought it meant "oh I can make a skilled X-Wing Pilot and live in that universe for a bit"

Sure. This is more of a "me learning about different kinds of games," so I don't end up having to have the game explained to me like the guy in the OP.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That unfortunately sounds like a mismatch in gaming preferences. It reminds me of people who only play say euro games being expected to play some traditional wargame or worse one that is traditional and has player elimination. It is just not a fit.

The jargon…I admit it’s not rational but if I hear forge stuff for example I 100% tune out. In part because I like wargames and say D&D steeped in those roots…I don’t think there is any way you could have framed this offering in a way that I would be interested in. It’s not your fault. Its just…- mismatch.

But OP I do know there are people that like what you like and you can get that satisfaction…just probably not with your example player. Not sure you did anything to cause the lack of connection here.

I have to agree. The player just doesn't seem a good fit for your style. If I were them I would have the same issues. Regardless of the narrative intentions of the game, it still has all these setting elements that IMO you should be able to interact with as your PC however the world allows.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I had a similar thing running Firefly a few years back. The party were in a saloon on some planet and a fist-fight started. One of the players reached for his gun to open fire because “that’s the highest attack skill I have” but I stopped the scene and explained that ‘bar brawls and fist fights are a genre staple’ for western-style games like Firefly. When you watch a bar fight in Firefly, even Jane doesn’t reach for his gun and he’s the gun-bunny in the group.

My player got it, and the game went on to be more evocative of the feel of Firefly the TV series.

So, while ‘wanting to get better stuff’ might be a reasonable in-genre motivation for a PC, the method of getting it through looting most certainly is not. If the PC wants cash, he should be looking for high-pay-out deals with crime lords…

Maybe the player in question just doesn't want genre conventions to be forced, especially if the setting allows a more traditional approach.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Rollerball (1975) ⭐ 6.5 | Action, Sci-Fi, Sport

2h 5m | R

www.imdb.com

Rollerball (2002) ⭐ 3.1 | Action, Sci-Fi, Sport

1h 38m | PG-13

www.imdb.com

Ummm...

Is the remake actually about rollerball? Because if it is, it misses the point.

 

[Aldarc]

Sure. This is more of a "me learning about different kinds of games," so I don't end up having to have the game explained to me like the guy in the OP.

A lot of this is also about understanding why and how different games work so that I can better find games that I enjoy or that I can recommend to others. Some of that jargon is useful in the same way that jargon like Survival, Rogue-like, Metroidvania, or Real-Time-With-Pause/Turn-Based is useful for finding video games that I prefer.

 

[Aldarc]

There's no way to talk about this without the understanding that they are in fact, writers, in a room, discussing how each character should be written for the sake of alignment with a desired vision, editing the participants understanding of their character motivations until it produces that specific creative vision, in other words, "George Lucas Stance."

I'm not sure that that the OP is fundamentally a discussion about "stances." Arguably the player is not concerned that much about the character's actual goals or their character's identity. If you were to use the language of stances, then what was transpiring was arguably more about "pawn stance" rather than "actor stance." That seemed to be why @innerdude asked the player, "are you conflating your desire as player with the actual character motivations?" The latter is what I would nominally expect from someone concerned with the actor stance. This would suggest to me that the player is not as concerned with either the actor stance or the director/writer stance.

That said, I think that the discussion in the OP was more about understanding what the game play is about, much in the same way that a player shouldn't try to play checkers as if they were playing chess or playing a cozy game as if it were a horror survival game. In this case, I think that the issue entails understanding the sort of play that Edge of the Empire likely wants to cultivate. As you say later, we don't necessarily know what kind of game a "Star Wars game" is. There is a big difference between playing Tie Fighter, Star Wars: Battlefront, KotR, Jedi Survivor, Lego Star Wars, despite all of them being Star Wars games.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I'm not sure that that the OP is fundamentally a discussion about "stances." Arguably the player is not concerned that much about the character's actual goals or their character's identity. If you were to use the language of stances, then what was transpiring was arguably more about "pawn stance" rather than "actor stance." That seemed to be why @innerdude asked the player, "are you conflating your desire as player with the actual character motivations?" The latter is what I would nominally expect from someone concerned with the actor stance. This would suggest to me that the player is not as concerned with either the actor stance or the director/writer stance.

That said, I think that the discussion in the OP was more about understanding what the game play is about, much in the same way that a player shouldn't try to play checkers as if they were playing chess or playing a cozy game as if it were a horror survival game. In this case, I think that the issue entails understanding the sort of play that Edge of the Empire likely wants to cultivate. As you say later, we don't necessarily know what kind of game a "Star Wars game" is. There is a big difference between playing Tie Fighter, Star Wars: Battlefront, KotR, Jedi Survivor, Lego Star Wars, despite all of them being Star Wars games.

I think its pretty clear from this part of the OP:

P: "Okay, but how does that play out in our game? I want to envision my character and play as if I'm the character. Isn't that just what I'm doing here?"

I: "I mean . . . sure, I guess. But I would tell you to ask yourself, very clearly and honestly, are you conflating your desire as player with the actual character motivations? Especially in Star Wars, character motivations are supposed to be heroic and self-sacrificing. In a very literal sense. So if you're really just 'playing your character,' and your character's motivations are literally just 'next stash of money, next job, repeat ad infinitum,' you're missing out on what this game is trying to do. Frankly, if that's what you really want, we should be playing a house-ruled Savage Worlds game instead."

P: "I still don't get how I'm supposed to just, bring out this character motivation."

What I'm reading here is that P does know their character motivations, their character is motivated by material things, it's I that's insisting that the motivations need to loftier and more heroic and I'm reading P as being at a non-confrontational dead end because their character is being redesigned by the director in a way that they don't feel alignment with, so they're speaking as if they must not understand the basics of roleplaying, despite envisioning the character and acting accordingly.

To me, this reads as though I is saying that P ought to be playing with a canned diegetic arc in mind, particularly when they give the example of where Han's story goes, and how that differs-- which to me is all a 'stance' in terms of how the player sees themselves in relation to the narrative.

I'm also a little confused, stepping into the details a bit, because I'm not unfamiliar with Edge of the Empire because we were gearing up to run it at one point, and it's pretty neutral to all of this as the game where Smugglers and Bounty Hunters do Smuggler and Bounty Hunter things, so killing someone with advanced cybernetics and then selling the tech to make a profit seems pretty on point for the kind of 'outer rim seedy people' game that Edge is trying to be.

OP seems to be describing their understanding of it's tone as being closer to a mixed Age of Rebellion or Force and Destiny game where the participants agreed to be rebel heroes up front and just agreed to be able to use character options from Edge to emulate a Han Solo already in the rebellion.

I also think they have some weird impressions about the simmier parts of the game itself being this weird dross on the system for 'residual min/maxers' like the player is supposed to know that contempt ought to be had for it, any game that has beskar armor that helps make you immune to lightsabers is expecting you to want to get beskar armor so you can be immune to lightsabers, to some degree, even if its also interested in storytelling.

 

[Aldarc]

I think its pretty clear from this part of the OP:

"What sparked our conversation last week was him getting hyper-focused (to an extreme degree) on how to make money so I can make my character better."

My reading is that it doesn't seem that character motivation is the chief concern for the player. It's likely more of a post-hoc rationalization of the player's own goals, hence the reason why innerdude likely asked the aformentioned question about conflating the player's goals with the character's.

 

[innerdude]

What I'm reading here is that P does know their character motivations, their character is motivated by material things, it's I that's insisting that the motivations need to loftier and more heroic and I'm reading P as being at a non-confrontational dead end because their character is being redesigned by the director in a way that they don't feel alignment with, so they're speaking as if they must not understand the basics of roleplaying, despite envisioning the character and acting accordingly.

Hmmm, not so much trying to "redesign" the character, so much as help the player find better alignment with the goals of the campaign. The player has struggled at times with what I perceive to be remnants of "trad" gameplay sensibilities that run counter to the "platonic ideal" of how FFG Star Wars runs.

If player wants to continue to be motivated solely by the "leveling progression treadmill," I mean, sure . . . he's free to do so. FFG Star Wars isn't anywhere close to being the best model for that, but I guess it's not the worst either.

To me, this reads as though I is saying that P ought to be playing with a canned diegetic arc in mind, particularly when they give the example of where Han's story goes, and how that differs-- which to me is all a 'stance' in terms of how the player sees themselves in relation to the narrative.

The idea is that if you shift intrinsic character motivation, you shift the way the character interfaces with the game world, and you shift the player's thought process for how to embed mechanics into the fictional positions and results. One of things "trad" players struggle with, in my experience with FFG, is that they don't know how to interpret Advantage or Threat as anything other than direct mechanical representations. So they quickly tire of it, or it gets boring as "same old, same old."

The entire second axis of resolution (Advantage / Threat) is a cue to the player to think about fictional positioning at least as much, if not more than the numbers. Advantage / Threat is very frequently best served by inserting "quantum gamestate" elements into the mix. So you rolled an extra 4 advantage this turn? Great! I don't know what that means yet, but it will definitely factor in against future stuff that's about to happen.

It's actually really fun for both players and GM to look back at something that happens and go, "Remember when you rolled that extra 4 advantage two turns ago? Well guess what---here's the cool thing you get from that."

I'm also a little confused, stepping into the details a bit, because I'm not unfamiliar with Edge of the Empire because we were gearing up to run it at one point, and it's pretty neutral to all of this as the game where Smugglers and Bounty Hunters do Smuggler and Bounty Hunter things, so killing someone with advanced cybernetics and then selling the tech to make a profit seems pretty on point for the kind of 'outer rim seedy people' game that Edge is trying to be.

OP seems to be describing their understanding of it's tone as being closer to a mixed Age of Rebellion or Force and Destiny game where the participants agreed to be rebel heroes up front and just agreed to be able to use character options from Edge to emulate a Han Solo already in the rebellion.

In a sense I get where you're coming from, because EotE is supposed to be the "scum and villainy" scoundrel thing. But Star Wars has just so many residual assumptions baked into the setting meta, and the structure of the game itself --- Triumph vs. Despair, Advantage vs. Threat, the Force die, Obligation -- that all point to this idea that characters are connected to the game world in ways that go beyond pure mercenary intent.

I also think they have some weird impressions about the simmier parts of the game itself being this weird dross on the system for 'residual min/maxers' like the player is supposed to know that contempt ought to be had for it, any game that has beskar armor that helps make you immune to lightsabers is expecting you to want to get beskar armor so you can be immune to lightsabers, to some degree, even if its also interested in storytelling.

Well, first off, there is no beskar armor in the core EotE rulebook. If he wanted to set himself off on a path to find some already existent (no matter how rare) set of armor already documented in the book, sure, whatever.

But the whole idea of beskar goes beyond mere progression. It's going from, "I want to improve my character," to, "I want to use my knowledge of the setting meta to force the GM to houserule something whole cloth that isn't in the book, and not only is it not in the book, it basically is supposed to narratively make me impervious to damage, because RAWR MOAR POWER FOR ME, LOLZ!"

Yeah. No offense, but screw that crap. I will tell a player to cut that out, vocally, forcibly, and without concern for their feelings. That's not the game I want to run, and I will tell them to walk away if they insist on continuing with it.

 

[dbm]

Maybe the player in question just doesn't want genre conventions to be forced, especially if the setting allows a more traditional approach.

That was the game we were playing, and he knew that but didn’t understand the implications until it was explained. Now we all get it and when we are playing genre games we stick with them.