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

[FrogReaver]

Isn't that already the core of Narrativist design or do you think people are missing something.

I am very confident they are

 

[pemerton]

Players should then be focused on making big, bold moves that aggress the fiction and gamestate.

@innerdude, please pull me up if this post is heading off in too much of a tangent to the purpose of your thread.

But this idea of "big, bold moves" resonated with me, particularly in light of conversations (some recent, some less so) where other posters advocate making moves to learn more about the situation - and what that means, in practical terms, is making low-stakes action declarations whose upshot (if successful) will be that the GM reveals a bit more about the overall fictional context, and hence about what is really at stake in the situation the PCs find themselves in.

I'm not entirely averse to information-gathering. But in "narrativist" play, it shouldn't predominate. Rather, there should be "big, bold" moves where the players, via their PCs, try and change things or make things happen. Eg rather than trying to work out what Lareth's agenda is, the PCs try and persuade Lareth to do something for them. Or rather than trying to find out whether or not there is a Dwarven Hall nearby, the focus of the action is making it through the snowstorm and the mountains to the Dwarven Hall.

Basically, anti-turtling.

 

[innerdude]

@innerdude, please pull me up if this post is heading off in too much of a tangent to the purpose of your thread.

But this idea of "big, bold moves" resonated with me, particularly in light of conversations (some recent, some less so) where other posters advocate making moves to learn more about the situation - and what that means, in practical terms, is making low-stakes action declarations whose upshot (if successful) will be that the GM reveals a bit more about the overall fictional context, and hence about what is really at stake in the situation the PCs find themselves in.

I'm not entirely averse to information-gathering. But in "narrativist" play, it shouldn't predominate. Rather, there should be "big, bold" moves where the players, via their PCs, try and change things or make things happen. Eg rather than trying to work out what Lareth's agenda is, the PCs try and persuade Lareth to do something for them. Or rather than trying to find out whether or not there is a Dwarven Hall nearby, the focus of the action is making it through the snowstorm and the mountains to the Dwarven Hall.

Basically, anti-turtling.

This is absolutely an appropriate thing to bring up, and Star Wars has a definite bias to this kind of action---saddle up, gear up, and go in. Maybe make a recon of the area, a quick report back, but really, you know where your enemy is, you know the basic situation, either get in and do the job or drop it. Like, in Return of the Jedi, the rebel recon force doesn't spend a week hunting through the forest for every possible weakness. Once they find out about the secret entrance from the ewoks, they make a quick assessment and roll in.

And if they get in trouble, they rely on their wits, smarts, firepower, and the "power of the Force" (i.e., getting some advantage + triumph on the dice).

For non-narrative styles, I think it's driven by the residual sense that the GM is just essentially waiting for the players to screw up and not ask that one specific thing that would give the PCs the one specific advantage that would make it a breeze to solve the encounter. So that when the GM totally hoses the party, the GM can point to their notes and say, "See? You didn't specifically ask about this one thing here, so that meant I totally got to burn you. Heheh, so much fun for me, right?"

Whereas in PbtA play, that information should be controlled by player position and activating (and winning) the appropriate move. If they fail the move, then sure, if you've set up the right hard move, then use it, but you're not gating the success (or the pain) behind an arbitrary wall of notes.

Now, how to explain that to the players? Talking about "big moves" in light of the mechanical moves, maybe? Discussion of how the whole purpose of narrative style is not to gate success behind the GM's conceptions, but to follow from the system's say?

 

[dbm]

A couple of things come to mind on that thread, one general and one specific to the Narrative Dice System that FFG uses.

In general, this kind of flow does not have to be mandated by the system. The GM can totally run other games with a similar flow to movies; it is my default style. Zoom in on the interesting stuff, zoom out or montage the less interesting stuff. Ride the red line across the map if the journey isn’t a key facet of the current adventure. These things can be applied to any game, however some games support them better than others. One of the reasons why Savage Worlds is my favourite system is that it has rules for applying more or less focus on activity, so for example you can resolve a fight in just one roll per character rather than breaking out the full combat system if this is just a ‘speed bump’ combat which the current world state requires but it isn’t really going to add to the game. But you can do it in any system and it’s probably something you could explain to your players since I presume they all have the experience of watching movies where the director chooses to spend time on some things and not others.

Specific to NDS, you could let you players spend ‘boons’ (can’t remember the specific name of the dice result which generates positive but tangential outcomes) to represent cool stuff the characters did in the past, flash-back style. Maybe spending a couple of ‘boon’ means that not only did they break in to the crime lords palace but they managed to have an ally infiltrate the organisation and be waiting to support them at the key moment. If you talk this through with your players and explain that the aim of this is to free up game time from the in-character prep they might otherwise feel compelled to do them this might also help re-focus the game on the scenes you want the game to feature. Similarly, spending ‘banes’ might be narrated as traps or tricks set up by the enemy that the character succumbed to. I seem to recall one of the design aims of NDS was to compress more action into a single roll so the story could move faster than in system with a strong ‘one roll - one action’ link.

I think explaining these meta concepts explicitly is important so the players fully understand ‘the rules of the game’ for the current campaign, especially as they may change from campaign to campaign depending on the feel and focus the group is going for.

 

[pemerton]

This is absolutely an appropriate thing to bring up

Cool!

how to explain that to the players? Talking about "big moves" in light of the mechanical moves, maybe? Discussion of how the whole purpose of narrative style is not to gate success behind the GM's conceptions, but to follow from the system's say?

It's a good question. Maybe, when you (as GM) invite the players to make an action declaration, if they tend towards a "turtling" action, encourage them to try something bolder?

And then also think about how you narrate consequences: when players succeed on checks, make it clear that they're getting what they aimed for; and when they fail, make it clear that that is the trigger for narrating an adverse consequence.

 

[TwoSix]

Whereas in PbtA play, that information should be controlled by player position and activating (and winning) the appropriate move. If they fail the move, then sure, if you've set up the right hard move, then use it, but you're not gating the success (or the pain) behind an arbitrary wall of notes.

Now, how to explain that to the players? Talking about "big moves" in light of the mechanical moves, maybe? Discussion of how the whole purpose of narrative style is not to gate success behind the GM's conceptions, but to follow from the system's say?

Push the screen down, and show them that the campaign notebook is empty.

For players accustomed to trad, OSR, or even just CRPGs, they have to truly understand that there's nothing behind the screen other than you as the DM explaining what happens as the result of their actions. It's very hard to break away from the idea that the DM has some secret map or plot concept in their head, and that the player's goal is to figure it out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Push the screen down, and show them that the campaign notebook is empty.

For players accustomed to trad, OSR, or even just CRPGs, they have to truly understand that there's nothing behind the screen other than you as the DM explaining what happens as the result of their actions. It's very hard to break away from the idea that the DM has some secret map or plot concept in their head, and that the player's goal is to figure it out.

At which point, of course, the players have to decide whether or not that's even the kind of game they want to play.

 

[TwoSix]

At which point, of course, the players have to decide whether or not that's even the kind of game they want to play.

Sure. Based on the OP, I'm assuming that the DM will have enough familiarity with the players to know if they'll be flexible enough to embrace what is, to them, a novel concept.

Then the question becomes the best way to bridge the understanding gap, not whether the player will try.

If the player doesn't understand OR finds it to be against their preferences after they understand, well, hey, at least everyone tried their best!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. Based on the OP, I'm assuming that the DM will have enough familiarity with the players to know if they'll be flexible enough to embrace what is, to them, a novel concept.

Then the question becomes the best way to bridge the understanding gap, not whether the player will try.

If the player doesn't understand OR finds it to be against their preferences after they understand, well, hey, at least everyone tried their best!

The OP was about trying to convince a player with a very trad background to enjoy narrative play in a system that clearly crosses the streams, and how to explain it to them. My comment seems relevant in that context.

 

[FrogReaver]

My advice.

1. Don’t try to define their normal playstyle to them, especially by saying it cannot or does not do X. You lose your audience immediately when you do that. They start trying to figure out why you are saying that instead of trying to figure out how the narrativist game plays. If they bring it up though, it’s fair game.

2. When they try to make traditional play elements too much of the focus the answer is to gloss over that focus in actual play. If equipment or whatever traditional play element really doesn’t matter they just succeed. If it does then the game better define how equipment or other elements anre actually obtained.