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

[innerdude]

Gameplay resolution in Star Wars FFG is more granular than in DND.

I appreciate you trying to point out the things you see in EotE. It's possible there is more "traditional" game living in the weeds in EotE than perhaps I expected. And that does perhaps change some of the color of my interaction with the player in question.

But a couple of points ---

First, D&D is an utterly useless point of comparison for me, particularly 5e. I haven't GM-ed a D20 based game of any kind since 2009. Couldn't care less about D&D, and especially don't care about 5e. I don't own 5e, I don't play 5e, will never GM 5e. Ever.

My primary game of choice since 2010 is Savage Worlds. I easily have 500+ GM hours in Savage Worlds, across at least 4 different genres (fantasy, modern, sci-fi, cyberpunk).

I definitively know that EotE is much LESS granular than Savage Worlds, on both an individual action-resolution scale and mechanical interactivity scale. And Savage Worlds certainly has a relatively equal gear-based component, but because Savage World's core combat is much more heavily reliant on key sets of numeric equivalences (attack vs. parry, damage vs. toughness) than EotE, it's much easier for gear stats to send the numeric ranges out of bounds.

This is, to be clear, a game that has a soak stat for how many points of damage a given creature can absorb, a pierce weapon quality to get around soak, and you can use a shield to produce setback rolls to accuracy seperate from that damage reduction, and encourages you to say, make it out of Cortosis so it can't be sundered by lightsabers. It has 'Talents' that let you stack 'Incidental Actions' in combat to effect powergame combos that circumvent action economy, let you make stat substitutions to make sure you make checks with your best stat, and variously improve your defenses, and other stats in all kinds of different contests.

Again, I appreciate your intentions, but let's just say, I am more than fully aware of all of this. I had all of this mechanical granularity and more in Savage Worlds. I don't need EotE for this. I literally suggested to the group at the beginning that I would have no problem using houseruled Savage Worlds to play this campaign. It was both eminently possible and desirable for me as a GM to do so, if the group had gone that direction.

We went with EotE ultimately because of what it offers that isn't based on the granularity of the core rules. I and two of the players wanted the additional narrative components that Savage Worlds doesn't have natively.

Telling me how much "trad" stuff still lives in EotE is ultimately non-productive. I'm not playing EotE for the "trad" side of things. If I want "trad", there's better options for sci-fi than EotE, frankly.

Just look at some of this stuff, this is not a loosely defined game, this is some serious crunch.

I can see why your player wants credits, all the ships have prices and customization hardpoints they can further spend to customize it.

Edit: sorry have to add one more example, you're discussing how having their mind on money and upgrades is a distraction from the game, the game is telling him his Scoundrel can circumvent the rarity of goods on illegal goods by taking a stacking talent that appears a bunch of times in a character advancement tree, paying an additional 50% of the price per reduction level of the rarity.

Point taken. I'll try to go easier on the player in question when he gets a gear hard-on next time. Still doesn't mean that the player choosing to ignore the narrative-oriented things EotE brings to the table isn't a category error on the player's part.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Have you tried, "like when Critical Role played Monsterhearts?"

 

[DEFCON 1]

I was struck by this. It suggests an approach to play where there is little or any social or normative overlay.

To me, that sort of approach makes much more sense to be done as classic dungeon-crawling, where the social and character aspects are just a fig-leaf. (See eg the ways that White Plume Mountain, the G-series or Ghost Tower of Inverness "motivate" the action.)

It doesn't really seem to fit, once more substantial social elements of the fiction are made salient - eg town guards. Unless the town is just another "dungeon" and so there isn't really meant to be any genuine social-ness about it. (I think some video games might be a bit like this? And so maybe some RPGing too?)

I agree. Oftentimes I think it comes down to either which game you all are playing, or how much experience the players have in different styles of RPGs.

Players who only play and who have only ever played D&D I think have a greater chance of thinking in terms of the "level up treadmill"... do things that generate XP, use the XP to level up, gain additional power through leveling up to take on new challenges that generate more XP, level up again, and so on. But the idea that the narrative and story that is generated and that the characters grow through is its own un-indicated "leveling experience" can sometimes pass players by. Unless the GM goes out of their way to highlight just how much influence and notoriety the characters now have in the game world that they might not have had levels and months previous.

Some games are all about the narrative, and for those types of games I suspect it is rare for the players to not know and understand how their characters have become more and more of a presence in the game world (based on reactions from NPCs and so forth.) But D&D doesn't tend to be one of those and thus a GM needs to teach their players this different way of seeing what a "character" is and what a character can "become"-- more than just numbers on a sheet of paper.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I appreciate you trying to point out the things you see in EotE. It's possible there is more "traditional" game living in the weeds in EotE than perhaps I expected. And that does perhaps change some of the color of my interaction with the player in question.

But a couple of points ---

First, D&D is an utterly useless point of comparison for me, particularly 5e. I haven't GM-ed a D20 based game of any kind since 2009. Couldn't care less about D&D, and especially don't care about 5e. I don't own 5e, I don't play 5e, will never GM 5e. Ever.

My primary game of choice since 2010 is Savage Worlds. I easily have 500+ GM hours in Savage Worlds, across at least 4 different genres (fantasy, modern, sci-fi, cyberpunk).

I definitively know that EotE is much LESS granular than Savage Worlds, on both an individual action-resolution scale and mechanical interactivity scale. And Savage Worlds certainly has a relatively equal gear-based component, but because Savage World's core combat is much more heavily reliant on key sets of numeric equivalences (attack vs. parry, damage vs. toughness) than EotE, it's much easier for gear stats to send the numeric ranges out of bounds.




Again, I appreciate your intentions, but let's just say, I am more than fully aware of all of this. I had all of this mechanical granularity and more in Savage Worlds. I don't need EotE for this. I literally suggested to the group at the beginning that I would have no problem using houseruled Savage Worlds to play this campaign. It was both eminently possible and desirable for me as a GM to do so, if the group had gone that direction.

We went with EotE ultimately because of what it offers that isn't based on the granularity of the core rules. I and two of the players wanted the additional narrative components that Savage Worlds doesn't have natively.

Telling me how much "trad" stuff still lives in EotE is ultimately non-productive. I'm not playing EotE for the "trad" side of things. If I want "trad", there's better options for sci-fi than EotE, frankly.




Point taken. I'll try to go easier on the player in question when he gets a gear hard-on next time. Still doesn't mean that the player choosing to ignore the narrative-oriented things EotE brings to the table isn't a category error on the player's part.

DND was brought up as a comparison point by you to your players so I was trying to meet you where you are, I think the key takeaway might be more that your player deserves a little less of your contempt, with the notes about the rules merely serving as a reality check on whether your lessons on narrative gaming are copacetic with the game you're playing, which incentivize a different play loop than the one you're trying to explain.

You came across very strongly in your condemnation of the kind of play these rules encourage and your player is following up on, and it seems productive to examine that, that contempt and anger is very core to your thesis for the thread-- it practically defines your voice as OP!

But yeah you did say you'd go easier, so that's good, but I wanted to emphasize what we're discussing here.

 

[TwoSix]

You came across very strongly in your condemnation of the kind of play these rules encourage and your player is following up on, and it seems productive to examine that, that contempt and anger is very core to your thesis for the thread-- it practically defines your voice as OP!

But yeah you did say you'd go easier, so that's good, but I wanted to emphasize what we're discussing here.

I got mostly frustration out of the OP, certainly not "contempt and anger".

 

[DEFCON 1]

I got mostly frustration out of the OP, certainly not "contempt and anger".

Heh.. the thing I've gotten out of all of @innerdude 's posts here is they have gone much further out of their way to not get defensive or reactionary to replies to their post than I think a lot of us would have. And for that, they are to be commended! It is often too easy to take any refutation to one's post as condemnation, and then respond back with an equally defensive refutation, which then devolves into argument. @innerdude has held back from doing that more moreso than what I usually see here on the boards, and they've done it very nicely in my opinion.

 

[TwoSix]

Heh.. the thing I've gotten out of all of @innerdude 's posts here is they have gone much further out of the way to not get defensive or reactionary to replies to their post than I think a lot of us would have. And for that, they are to be commended! It is often too easy to take any refutation to one's post as condemnation, and then respond back with an equally defensive refutation, which then devolves into argument. @innerdude has held back from doing that more moreso than what I usually see here on the boards, and they've done it very nicely in my opinion.

Full agreement.

 

[Umbran]

I don't know why you want to stop these conversations.

His stated point is not that he conversation should stop.

His stated point is that certain forms of language use will exclude many readers and possible contributors from the conversation.

And, when the OP is all about NOT using such language, and how successful it can still be, drifting into that language would be downright ironic.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Gotta be honest, I'm not sure what thread ya'll are reading. Op's tone regarding this other playstyle is caustic.

 

[FrogReaver]

I got mostly frustration out of the OP, certainly not "contempt and anger".

I didn’t see anger in the OP but I did see contempt and frustration. The excerpt below epitomizes the contempt I think.

“I am flat-out DONE with gameplay that focuses on "How do I get my next bonus to stat and my next +2 sword and my next +2 AC bonus so I can be awesome?!" Go play BG3 or Skyrim, away from my table, if that's your thing.”

And to be fair @innerdude has rolled with all the criticisms very elegantly and far more nicely than I would have.

Which brings up an interesting question. How does the player in question approach Savage Worlds?