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

[thefutilist]

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.

I'm a big advocate for having fixed stuff behind the screen but I think your point still stands. Being totally transparent and open on how the GM makes decisions puts the game as a whole in context.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Of course if working with equipment is part of the fun for that player, glossing over it because you as the GM think it shouldn't matter (even when the rules of game clearly state that it does) probably won't work for them.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'll agree with the others that you're gaming with the wrong person. Or the other person is. Or both.

 

[FrogReaver]

Of course if working with equipment is part of the fun for that player, glossing over it because you as the GM think it shouldn't matter (even when the rules of game clearly state that it does) probably won't work for them.

Not sure why glossing over its acquisition would ever be a problem.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not sure why glossing over its acquisition would ever be a problem.

Some people like that aspect of play actually, but I was more talking about having its use "just work", as was mentioned.

 

[Emberashh]

Reading through this topic it just proves itself exemplary of the exact over-obsessiveness with storytelling in the hobby that I've been observing over the years, with the issues debated here the exact ones that obsessiveness leads to.

Ironically, that issue is just a different kind of railroading. Rather than letting a theme emerge out of play, a player is being dragged into a conflict with their GM over forcing a specific thematic premise, and its wrapped up in, as is tradition, all this waffling over playstyle that really is so besides the point.

Has to be said that games are, ultimately, an interactive medium of storytelling when it comes down to it. If you want to use a game to retell Star Wars in a way that uses the medium at its best, you need to focus on how interactions lead to that story, but then you also need to accept you'll never actually retell it, unless you're okay with railroading.

A while ago I came up with a good example of the difference by pointing at Iron Man. In a movie, to focus more than a token few scenes on how he builds his first suit out of a box of scraps in a cave would be misuse of the medium, not because such scenes are boring (From the Earth to the Moon's Spider episode proves you can make straight up engineering into a super compelling narrative), but because movies are a visual medium, and in Iron Man the film, the story being told doesn't need more than those few scenes to convey Iron Man's effective origin as a hero.

But, games aren't movies, and if we were to play a video game about Iron Man but couldn't engage in some manner with actually building a suit, then its a lost opportunity at best (as presumably we still get actual gameplay wearing the suit), and a tragic misuse of the medium at its worst (where we don't get any suit gameplay beyond cutscenes).

In tabletop, it just seems theres a lot of internalized defeatism at the idea that mechanical gameplay can be both compelling and leveraged to tell a compelling story, or, better yet, allow one to emerge organically through play, rather than trying to inorganically recreate a story told in an entirely different medium, which really, truly, can only be done by removing play from the equation.

Even Improv ultimately has to suffer for this inorganic, non-emergent narrative, which speaks to the problem. Its not impossible to allow for truly emergent, non-railroady, themes to come out of a mechanically driven game (just recognize and design for the Improv Game and integrate mechanics with it properly), but the stories that can be constructed out of what happens are never going to look like or be structured like a Movie, and its a fool's errand to try. You'll either get a pale, boring imitation, or you'll completely misuse the game as a medium to do whatever it is you actually did. (Likely both)

One also has to keep in mind, before certain obvious responses are given, that as RPGs are fundamentally Improv Games, the principle of Yes,And goes three ways. The Players, the GM, and the Rules themselves are all participants and have to Yes,And each other if you don't want the Improv Game to break down (eg, cause railroads and other forms of blocking).

If a game has mechanically made it important as part of its interactions to engage with gear, you should really play something else if thats not the kind of game you wanted to play, or, you could stop trying to force a story and just play the game, on its terms, and let a story emerge from play.

Its a lot more fun for everyone, and you'll spend far less energy arguing on the internet to boot.

 

[pemerton]

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.

I thought the OP was about trying to explain to a player what the GM was looking for in the game, and why the GM was finding the player's approach frustrating.

 

[pemerton]

When they try to make traditional play elements too much of the focus the answer is to gloss over that focus in actual play.

Here's an example that chaochou posted over a decade ago (D&D 4E - Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e D&D 4E - Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e)

chaochou: So if someone threatens an NPC like this - 'Drop the gun or I'll burn your damn house down' you might say 'That would be a cool scene...'. If you get a good vibe back from the table, well if it's still appropriate by the end of this scene then as the spotlight comes back to that player you could say 'Okay, so you're outside Jed's ranch with torches and oil somewhere just after midnight. You're starting forward when suddenly you hear the tail of the rattler as it rears up right in front of you'. Previously stated goal - burn house down. New complication - rattlesnake.

pemerton: if the player insisted that they were going to buy a new gun, I would probably back up to that - but my preference would be for the ruleset itself to minimise the mechanical significance of buying new guns, and hence to minimise the incentive for players to do that sort of more exploratory play in pursuit of mechanical advantages.

chaochou: Personally, I won't back up. I just say "Yeah, you bought a gun. So, what about this rattlesnake?"​

 

[Micah Sweet]

I thought the OP was about trying to explain to a player what the GM was looking for in the game, and why the GM was finding the player's approach frustrating.

I read it as a clear attempt on the OPs part on a persuasive argument, as if properly explaining what they wanted out of narrative play would hopefully lead to them changing their behavior and agreeing to their point of view.

 

[pemerton]

I read it as a clear attempt on the OPs part on a persuasive argument, as if properly explaining what they wanted out of narrative play would hopefully lead to them changing their behavior and agreeing to their point of view.

Yes, @innerdude is hoping that the player will play the game in the way innerdude intends it to be played.

But the OP does not ask "How can I achieve my hope?" As per the thread title, it asks about how to explain what one is hoping for.