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Trying to Describe "Narrative-Style Gameplay" to a Current Player in Real-World Terms
- Thread starter innerdude
- Start date
payn
I don't believe in the no-win scenario
As the prophecy has foretold.
hawkeyefan
Legend
So I’m thinking back to when I was in the same situation as @innerdude described in the OP. I had a couple of players who I knew would struggle with the shift from our more traditional minded play consisting mostly of D&D into games that handled things differently.
In my case, I just threw them in the deep end so to speak, by diving right into a new game. I described a couple of the features of play that were most different, and that they’d need to understand in order to play, and then we jumped right in. This was in a game of Blades in the Dark.
We began with character and crew creation. This process in and of itself set some expectations. We came up with a shared history for the characters… what brought them together, friends and enemies they made along the way, and resources they had at their disposal. This helped give them some clear goals and also background elements to flesh out their character ideas.
I know this is something that many games position as required, but that’s often not the case with more trad games. In D&D, and often in other similar games/settings (and I’d include Star Wars among them), players have their own individual ideas of what they want for a character, and often create them in isolation and then bring them to play.
So for my Blades game, that was half the battle right there. The characters were all focused on similar goals and needs, and had a shared sense of purpose. This mostly left the mechanics and play processes as potential obstacles to playing this nee type of game.
For the most part, I just explained that in as straightforward a manner as possible. I never mentioned “narrativist vs. trad play” or anything like that. I just explained things like “you don’t need to declare what items you bring at the start of the Score, just the Load you have, which determines how many items you may have”.
The game also pushes the participants to cut to the action once a Score is determined. I mentioned this and reminded them of it, but I didn’t do so as sternly as I would now. I introduced the idea, let them plan a bit, then pushed for the Engagement Roll (this determines how the Score starts, in a Controlled, Risky, or Desperate position). They hesitated, thinking more planning was needed, so I let them go another couple minutes, then pushed for the roll again.
I made the roll, which came up Risky, and then I described the situation accordingly, using some of the details they had mentioned in their planning. Then I reminded them that they didn’t have to stick to what they’d said (and if I recall correctly, there were some things that were basically ruled out by the situation) and that for the cost of some Stress, they could establish new information via Flashback.
Because the scenario was pretty straightforward, no Flashbacks were used, but otherwise everyone seemed to grasp the game. The ones who struggled a bit were the players steeped in trad play the longest. They also happened to be the players who play the most video games, particularly CRPGs; so I expect their struggle (such as it was) was due to some mixture of these two things. But none struggled too much.
The next Score was slightly more involved, and was one I presented to them. I offered them their choice of two Scores. One player wound up using our first Flashback. For the third Score, I presented them with three options, all shaped by the first two Scores. I slowly expanded the numbers of Scores to kind of get them used to choosing how to proceed. For the fourth Score, I had some options in mind to share, but by then the players were batting around their own ideas for Scores, so we came up with one from their ideas.
And after that, with each session they became more and more comfortable with the game and the expectations of the players and the GM. They became very self directed and started really driving play. Even the most trad-minded of the bunch was comfortable with the differences in play.
So I think, for me, starting off with group character creation was a big part of it. It involves everyone together, so everyone is aware of what you’re doing with your character, how they all connect, and what their collective goals are. I don’t know if this was something done for the game in the OP, but it’s possible that it may have helped… perhaps if the player in question had discussed goals with the group, his focus may not have been on the kind of default “loot to get more stuff so that I’m tougher so I can loot more stuff” cycle that’s kind of ingrained in traditional play.
The next step, of easing folks into new ideas, may not have mattered as much. Based on the description in the OP, I’d say that the player needs to come to conclusions in his own time. So what I’d try to do is introduce opportunities for goals other than loot/gear acquisition. If he doesn’t bite at first, that’s fine, but keep trying. See if he can be steered in the desired direction. Reinforce this with frequent check ins about the meta of play. End every session with “so what worked today” or “what went wrong today” type discussions. Obviously, that’s something that’s already started, but maybe more frequent discussions about broad topics instead of a deep discussion focused on a specific one may help.
In my case, I just threw them in the deep end so to speak, by diving right into a new game. I described a couple of the features of play that were most different, and that they’d need to understand in order to play, and then we jumped right in. This was in a game of Blades in the Dark.
We began with character and crew creation. This process in and of itself set some expectations. We came up with a shared history for the characters… what brought them together, friends and enemies they made along the way, and resources they had at their disposal. This helped give them some clear goals and also background elements to flesh out their character ideas.
I know this is something that many games position as required, but that’s often not the case with more trad games. In D&D, and often in other similar games/settings (and I’d include Star Wars among them), players have their own individual ideas of what they want for a character, and often create them in isolation and then bring them to play.
So for my Blades game, that was half the battle right there. The characters were all focused on similar goals and needs, and had a shared sense of purpose. This mostly left the mechanics and play processes as potential obstacles to playing this nee type of game.
For the most part, I just explained that in as straightforward a manner as possible. I never mentioned “narrativist vs. trad play” or anything like that. I just explained things like “you don’t need to declare what items you bring at the start of the Score, just the Load you have, which determines how many items you may have”.
The game also pushes the participants to cut to the action once a Score is determined. I mentioned this and reminded them of it, but I didn’t do so as sternly as I would now. I introduced the idea, let them plan a bit, then pushed for the Engagement Roll (this determines how the Score starts, in a Controlled, Risky, or Desperate position). They hesitated, thinking more planning was needed, so I let them go another couple minutes, then pushed for the roll again.
I made the roll, which came up Risky, and then I described the situation accordingly, using some of the details they had mentioned in their planning. Then I reminded them that they didn’t have to stick to what they’d said (and if I recall correctly, there were some things that were basically ruled out by the situation) and that for the cost of some Stress, they could establish new information via Flashback.
Because the scenario was pretty straightforward, no Flashbacks were used, but otherwise everyone seemed to grasp the game. The ones who struggled a bit were the players steeped in trad play the longest. They also happened to be the players who play the most video games, particularly CRPGs; so I expect their struggle (such as it was) was due to some mixture of these two things. But none struggled too much.
The next Score was slightly more involved, and was one I presented to them. I offered them their choice of two Scores. One player wound up using our first Flashback. For the third Score, I presented them with three options, all shaped by the first two Scores. I slowly expanded the numbers of Scores to kind of get them used to choosing how to proceed. For the fourth Score, I had some options in mind to share, but by then the players were batting around their own ideas for Scores, so we came up with one from their ideas.
And after that, with each session they became more and more comfortable with the game and the expectations of the players and the GM. They became very self directed and started really driving play. Even the most trad-minded of the bunch was comfortable with the differences in play.
So I think, for me, starting off with group character creation was a big part of it. It involves everyone together, so everyone is aware of what you’re doing with your character, how they all connect, and what their collective goals are. I don’t know if this was something done for the game in the OP, but it’s possible that it may have helped… perhaps if the player in question had discussed goals with the group, his focus may not have been on the kind of default “loot to get more stuff so that I’m tougher so I can loot more stuff” cycle that’s kind of ingrained in traditional play.
The next step, of easing folks into new ideas, may not have mattered as much. Based on the description in the OP, I’d say that the player needs to come to conclusions in his own time. So what I’d try to do is introduce opportunities for goals other than loot/gear acquisition. If he doesn’t bite at first, that’s fine, but keep trying. See if he can be steered in the desired direction. Reinforce this with frequent check ins about the meta of play. End every session with “so what worked today” or “what went wrong today” type discussions. Obviously, that’s something that’s already started, but maybe more frequent discussions about broad topics instead of a deep discussion focused on a specific one may help.
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Ruin Explorer
Legend
I know this is a long thread and I haven't read all of it, but I was really struck by this and would just like to amplify how true I think it is. There is absolutely a subsection of the TTRPG community which, for a very long time, aggressively used jargon to gatekeep, even inventing new jargon which essentially meant the same as old jargon, but if you didn't keep up with it, you could be gatekept out of things. It's a bit less present on ENWorld than some other places, but it is present.
And in retrospect this is kind of bizarre! Like why has this been a thing? A ton of the terms used are just totally unnecessarily jargon-y or weighted with judgement or better yet, both!
Re: the OP's issue I kind of feel like it boils down to "play your character from the character's perspective, not the metagame!" - the player says he's doing that, but he clearly isn't. I don't think it's really very complicated. I don't think an explanation of different modes of play or what the designers are trying to do is needed (though I will admit we did have a very interesting discussion in our group recently about that during a game, but it was quite brief and pithy and we're all very experienced with many systems). You do get games where "upgrade myself constantly" is viable in-character motivation - Cyberpunk or Shadowrun, for example - but in SW it seems like such a character would absolutely be an oddball.
Certainly when I was younger I used to come across players like this - I no longer play with any of them except those who recovered. Like, we still have powergamers and absolutely people who build PCs in ways with a close eye on making sure they're highly effective and nothing is wasted, but once they're in the game, they play them as characters, not tools to get money to make numbers bigger.
(I will say some games do kind of bad job here - if they make the gameplay about constantly acquiring upgrades, but the actual story of the game/setting isn't about that, then... you've got a mismatch.)
payn
I don't believe in the no-win scenario
A really good write up.
I do think there is a time and place to recognize when a player just has solid ideas of what an RPG is to them. I've had a player/GM that took me a real long time to figure out. We played numerous systems, D&D/PF/CoC/PbtA/SW/etc.. One thing that rang continually true was the player was trying to find out what their character did. At first I thought they struggled with the idea of being an investigator, dare devil, pirate, teacher, celebrity, insert any RPG character idea you have here. How you tackle problems and resolve them seemed to be the issue.
What they wanted, however, was a solid game mechanical process. If im a face, then I need a face action in combat. If im a healer, I need heal actions, in combat. If im a sneak attacker, I need sneak attack options in combat. If the system didnt provide appropriate singular mechanical resolution in combat, the player was disappointed. If the GM didnt provide situations in which the one combat mechanical thing was applicable, the player was disatisfied.
What I discovered is the player viewed RPG through a singular lens. Mechacnics in combat. They didnt grok the game outside of comabt. They didnt get talking to NPCs, or coming up with plans to tackle the problems. Everything was on the character sheet, and everything was resolved in combat encounters. The rest, was just window dressing. Once I realised this, it was pointless trying to show them any other way.
TL; DR You can lead a gamer to Mountain Dew, but you cant make them drink.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
To be fair, Mt Dew is classified as a chemical weapon under the Geneva Convention.
Cordwainer Fish
Imp. Int. Scout Svc. (Dishon. Ret.)
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I think depending on what RPGs you were introduced to in your early career, it would be quite easy to get stuck in that mindset!
A significant subset of RPGs (including to a large extent most/all editions of D&D) kind of hyperfocus on combat, and whilst they may technically provide rules to resolve other situations, 90% of what is on your character sheet, and what you had to think about in chargen is going to combat or combat-adjacent (scouting/sneaking etc.) stuff. Like, if you played CoC first, no way, because most of what matters is outside combat, but D&D or a close relative, or even, being real, something like Cyberpunk 2020 (where Friday Night Firefight was like, most of rules outside of the impenetrable hacking rules).
That's fascinating though.
Our biggest struggle with this was a player did know better, but just couldn't not obsess about it until he simply grew up enough. He was an absolute munchkin at times in the '90s though!
hawkeyefan
Legend
I think some of this is also due to video games, which I touched on in my previous post. Think about games like Diablo and Skyrim and the like. They take the classic RPG conventions and concepts, and then use them in a new media. Almost by default, that media focuses more on action than any other element. And since video games are so much more popular than TTRPGs, there's been a return influence there... they're now influencing the games that inspired them.
So a lot of players have had this combat intense focus reinforced by video games, and then bring that mindset back to TTRPGs. It's influenced expectations and processes and design choices.
And I don't want to imply in any way that those games are "bad"... it's just about what the experience of play is expected to be and what the experience of play actually is. When I play Diablo, I expect to basically never stop killing things and getting loot and then killing more powerful things and getting even more loot. It's a fun game. It's not what I want out of my TTRPGs, though... so when a player approaches a game I GM with that expectation in mind, that's gonna likely cause an issue unless we work it out.
I have two players who, when we play other games, approach play very much along the expectations of the given game. But as soon as we play D&D, they absolutely approach it the way they do video games. It's all character builds and how to properly spec your character and so on. It's strange how they cannot seem to bring the open mindset they have with other games and apply it to D&D.
So a lot of players have had this combat intense focus reinforced by video games, and then bring that mindset back to TTRPGs. It's influenced expectations and processes and design choices.
And I don't want to imply in any way that those games are "bad"... it's just about what the experience of play is expected to be and what the experience of play actually is. When I play Diablo, I expect to basically never stop killing things and getting loot and then killing more powerful things and getting even more loot. It's a fun game. It's not what I want out of my TTRPGs, though... so when a player approaches a game I GM with that expectation in mind, that's gonna likely cause an issue unless we work it out.
I have two players who, when we play other games, approach play very much along the expectations of the given game. But as soon as we play D&D, they absolutely approach it the way they do video games. It's all character builds and how to properly spec your character and so on. It's strange how they cannot seem to bring the open mindset they have with other games and apply it to D&D.
