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

[pemerton]

Here are a couple of other things I've read that @innerdude's OP prompted me to recall:

A review of The Riddle of Steel:

The Riddle of Steel includes multiple text pieces regarding the thematic drive of the game, which I have paraphrased to the Premise: "What is worth killing for?" It also includes a tremendously detailed, in-game-causal combat system. My call is that we are looking at Narrativist-Simulationist hybrid design, with the latter in a distinctly subordinate/supportive role. This is a scary and difficult thing to do.

The first game to try it was RuneQuest. Realism, so-called, was supposed to be the foundation for heroic, mythic tale-creation. However, without metagame mechanics or any other mechanisms regarding protagonism, the realism-Sim took over, and RuneQuest became, essentially, a wargame at the individual level. The BRP (RuneQuest) system is right up there with AD&D and Champions in terms of its historical influence on other games, and no game design attempted to "power Narrativism with Simulationist combat" from the ground up again. I can even see dating the false dichotomy of "roll vs. role playing" back to this very moment in RPG history.

One functional solution to the problem, as illustrated for just about every Narrativist game out there, is to move combat mechanics very far into the metagame realm: Sorcerer, Castle Falkenstein, The Dying Earth, Zero, Orkworld, Hero Wars, and The Pool take that road to various distances, and it works. Until recently, I would have said these and similar designs presented the only functional solution from a Narrativism-first perspective.

However, The Riddle of Steel is like a guy waving his hand in the back of the room -"Scuse me, scuse me, what about that first road? I'm not ready to jettison that idea yet." It's as if someone stepped into The Chaosium in 1977, and said, "Hey, you know, if you don't put some kind of player-modulated personality mechanic in there, this game is going to be all about killing monsters and collecting Clacks." This didn't happen in 1977, and that's why RuneQuest play was often indeed all about those things. But it's happened now ...​

It seems to me that the core idea of this thread is looking for ways to articulate a certain sort of RPG play, in which Clacks are part of the fiction - they're there in the background - but play is not predominantly about collecting them. So we're looking for ways to explain what is involved in foregrounding other ways of engaging with the fiction. Mechanics are part of this - as the reviewer I've quoted explains - but the ethos adopted by the game participants can also make a difference.

A review of some more fantasy heartbreakers:

The key assumption throughout all these games is that if a gaming experience is to be intelligent (and all Fantasy Heartbreakers make this claim), then the most players can be relied upon to provide is kind of the "Id" of play - strategizing, killing, and conniving throughout the session. They are the raw energy, the driving "go," and the GM's role is to say, "You just scrap, strive, and kill, and I'll show ya, with this book, how it's all a brilliant evocative fantasy."​

It seems to me an important concern of this thread, related to the core idea I've described just above, and perhaps especially the bit about ethos, is that players can do more in RPGing than simply provide the Id of play. For those RPGers who are not familiar with that, how do we explain what that involves?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know anything about the player in @innerdude's game beyond what has been posted in this thread.

But I have had a lot of interaction with @Micah Sweet. I don't believe that Micah Sweet is confused about how (say) Dungeon World or Burning Wheel is played - or at least, if he is confused I don't know why given the hundreds or thousands of posts he's read, the examples of play he's been pointed to, etc.

Not liking something doesn't mean it's not understood. And conversely, explaining something isn't always, or even typically (at least in healthy social contexts) an attempt at conversion.

That's true. I have a pretty good understanding of narrative play. I just don't enjoy it personally.

That being said, the player in question is in the OPs game I think it's pretty natural to want them to continue playing in it, and to do so in the way the OP wants (thus requiring a good explanation of what that is). So, we have an attempt at persuasion. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Maybe there's some ambiguity whether he's aspiring to something more "story now"-ish (that's a phrase whose meaning is clear to me, as there is an essay that coins the phrase and establishes its canonical meaning, by reference to a range of RPGs and approaches that I have sufficient familiarity with to work out what is meant by it), or something more "neo-trad/OC"-ish (a phrase whose meaning is reasonably clear to me, by having followed various online discussions about this popular style of play). But whichever he is aspiring to, it's fairly clear that power-up-by-collecting-the-loot-and-gear is not meant to be a big part of the game.

This did sort of occur to me, given the relatively narrow acceptable character arc cited to their player as acceptable and the central conceit of the player driving towards the narrative, rather than it arising as an outcome of their incentives. But I think I inferred the intended direction from:

So that of course meant I needed to try to explain what a more "narrative style of play" meant in terms that didn't involve Forge-speak, esoterica of gameplay loops, or just telling him, "Go read Ironsworn from cover-to-cover and get back to me."

Which does kind of create an interrelated concept of "is that where you/FFG respectively are?" which is why we're discussing it, because the explanation needs to be applicable to the game, especially to explain a movement so entrenched in the System Matters epiphany.

 

[Manbearcat]

Which does kind of create an interrelated concept of "is that where you/FFG respectively are?" which is why we're discussing it, because the explanation needs to be applicable to the game, especially to explain a movement so entrenched in the System Matters epiphany.

* You get complaints about the conversation being inaccessible if you engage a topic by intimately discussing a specific game engine's particulars (of which only some people are acquainted with and those that aren't clearly aren't curious about the game or the conversation).

* You get complaints about being exclusionary for employing the technical jargon (just like in one does in every_discipline_ever) necessary to explain complex concepts (without extending word count by an order of magnitude) when you zoom out and engage at the level of game agenda, participant principles, play priorities.

Meanwhile, it has to be noted that normative TTRPG culture (like every other culture or discipline) is utterly_drenched in jargon...and jargon (and slang) naturally evolves over time.

* You get complaints about giving offense when you compare and contrast the dynamics of one game or one play agenda (no matter what level of zoom or what lens or language you apply) to another.

---

Its an endless "heads you lose, tails I win" environment where people are constantly haggling and heckler's vetoing the TTRPGs version of The Overton Window.

A complete quagmire.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

* You get complaints about the conversation being inaccessible if you engage a topic by intimately discussing a specific game engine's particulars (of which only some people are acquainted with and those that aren't clearly aren't curious about the game or the conversation).

* You get complaints about being exclusionary for employing the technical jargon (just like in one does in every_discipline_ever) necessary to explain complex concepts (without extending word count by an order of magnitude) when you zoom out and engage at the level of game agenda, participant principles, play priorities.

Meanwhile, it has to be noted that normative TTRPG culture (like every other culture or discipline) is utterly_drenched in jargon...and jargon (and slang) naturally evolves over time.

* You get complaints about giving offense when you compare and contrast the dynamics of one game or one play agenda (no matter what level of zoom or what lens or language you apply) to another.

---

Its an endless "heads you lose, tails I win" environment where people are constantly haggling and heckler's vetoing the TTRPGs version of The Overton Window.

A complete quagmire.

I think its because ultimately, these discussions attract adherents of multiple movements, and the language used by those movements convey differing values that push the conversation towards those values-- which is all pretty much the case in art, literature, and so forth too. So everybody is dickering over the terminology they can and can't use to mean what as a means of dickering over the values those things convey-- even OP and their player are examples of that in the first post of this thread, in terms of having their values be contextualized by different movements in roleplaying.

 

[pemerton]

I think its because ultimately, these discussions attract adherents of multiple movements

Which is weird in itself, right?

I mean, why are people who are not interested in "narrative style gameplay", or in explaining it to their fellow RPGers in the hope that their fellow RPGers might join in on it, participating in this thread? Like, what's their goal?

 

[Manbearcat]

I think its because ultimately, these discussions attract adherents of multiple movements, and the language used by those movements convey differing values that push the conversation towards those values-- which is all pretty much the case in art, literature, and so forth too. So everybody is dickering over the terminology they can and can't use to mean what as a means of dickering over the values those things convey-- even OP and their player are examples of that in the first post of this thread, in terms of having their values be contextualized by different movements in roleplaying.

Oh I know that is the hypothesis. But me say this:

* Although I have been accused of it aplenty, I am no "adherent to a movement" (as you put it). Anyone who knows me at all (including those who have engaged with me on here to any degree) has to know that deep down. Because I don't denounce a movement (which is basically the tacit demand put forth), in this case The Forge and Narrativism, doesn't mean I'm an "adherent to a movement." I categorically reject that framing of myself.

I have been many different things in my professional life. I have absorbed and engaged with so many different disciplines within games and all manner of specific games (ball sports, martial arts, board games, TTRPGs, card games, parlor games). I have run so many TTRPGs and the overwhelming majority of my life has been devoted to running Pawn Stance D&D dungeon crawls...yet folks on here will try to cast me as "one of them"...that I'm an "adherent to a movement (Forge Narrativism)."

* The other thing? I don't dicker over terminology. That ain't me. If someone asks me about a piece of technical language, I'll sincerely and carefully try to explain the concept to them. If someone deploys some language or concepts (like Pedantic's usage of "parasitic design") I don't understand or someone introduces something I'm not familar with like "The Cultures of Pla"y essay...I don't complain about exclusionary language...or cast them as an elitist jerk...or just generate an environment that is hostile to interrogation of ideas and free exchange. I ask them about it. I read about it. I learn about it as best I'm able. And I use the term, the concept, or the essay in the way I find most useful (even if I disagree around the edges).

---

Net: What you're depicting above is for sure true at a sufficient level of zoom. But it really fails to capture the dynamics of the micro-locale and the specifics of a given individual's orientation to and behavior around the function or dysfunction of the conversation (whether that be a given exchange, a given thread, or years and years of threads accreted).

 

[FrogReaver]

Serious question. Why the heck are people having the ‘jargon’ discussion here? Seems like the absolute worst thread for it.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Oh I know that is the hypothesis. But me say this:

* Although I have been accused of it aplenty, I am no "adherent to a movement" (as you put it). Anyone who knows me at all (including those who have engaged with me on here to any degree) has to know that deep down. Because I don't denounce a movement (which is basically the tacit demand put forth), in this case The Forge and Narrativism, doesn't mean I'm an "adherent to a movement." I categorically reject that framing of myself.

I have been many different things in my professional life. I have absorbed and engaged with so many different disciplines within games and all manner of specific games (ball sports, martial arts, board games, TTRPGs, card games, parlor games). I have run so many TTRPGs and the overwhelming majority of my life has been devoted to running Pawn Stance D&D dungeon crawls...yet folks on here will try to cast me as "one of them"...that I'm an "adherent to a movement (Forge Narrativism)."

* The other thing? I don't dicker over terminology. That ain't me. If someone asks me about a piece of technical language, I'll sincerely and carefully try to explain the concept to them. If someone deploys some language or concepts (like Pedantic's usage of "parasitic design") I don't understand or someone introduces something I'm not familar with like "The Cultures of Pla"y essay...I don't complain about exclusionary language...or cast them as an elitist jerk...or just generate an environment that is hostile to interrogation of ideas and free exchange. I ask them about it. I read about it. I learn about it as best I'm able. And I use the term, the concept, or the essay in the way I find most useful (even if I disagree around the edges).

---

Net: What you're depicting above is for sure true at a sufficient level of zoom. But it really fails to capture the dynamics of the micro-locale and the specifics of a given individual's orientation to and behavior around the function or dysfunction of the conversation (whether that be a given exchange, a given thread, or years and years of threads accreted).

I'm not sure if I care as much about stated preference as revealed preference-- I think everyone likes to see themselves as above it in a way that makes it less helpful when examining the space in a meaningful way, but I also don't know that I really have an impression of where you personally fall, so if you're looking to lock horns on that as some specific point of etiquette or identity, I don't think I can really help you.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Which is weird in itself, right?

I mean, why are people who are not interested in "narrative style gameplay", or in explaining it to their fellow RPGers in the hope that their fellow RPGers might join in on it, participating in this thread? Like, what's their goal?

OP's player isn't physically present on enworld, but their positions are present in the ideological scope of the thread and represent what OP is challenging, so some people are speaking up as a proxy for them. Other people in the thread are trying to present a third-party perspective to help OP refine their approach and consider their own points as they might make them from new perspectives, independent of where that refinement gets OP in a purely strategic sense.