Vincent Baker on narrativist RPGing, then and now

[pemerton]

Here is something Vincent Baker wrote a bit more than twenty years ago <lumpley games: Roleplaying Theory, Hardcore>:

After setup, what a game's rules do is control how you resolve one situation into the next. If you're designing a Narrativist game, what you need are rules that create a) rising conflict b) across a moral line c) between fit characters d) according to the authorship of the players. Every new situation should be a step upward in that conflict, toward a climax and resolution. Your rules need to provoke the players, collaboratively, into escalating the conflict, until it can't escalate no more.

Character creation in a Narrativist game might work by creating characters who, in some key way, have nowhere else to go. Life o' Crime, the rpg: create a character who owes somebody more money than he can repay.

Setting in a Narrativist game might work by applying pressure to that key point in the characters. Life o' Crime: there's recession, few jobs, no way up or out, but worse class difference than ever before anywhere. You see wealth but no opportunity.

Situation in a Narrativist game works by increasing the pressure. Life o' Crime: Someone depends on your character to bring home groceries and pay rent. Someone else has just been evicted and is facing homelessness. Someone else asks you if you know where to get drugs. Someone else just got beaten by the authorities. Someone else just got beaten by the guy you owe money to. Someone else offers to cut you in on a job. Someone else wants the whole take for himself. Someone else knew you'd never amount to anything. Someone else can't be trusted. Someone else can be.

System in a Narrativist game works, again, by resolving one situation into the next. Life o' Crime: what do you do? How does it work out for you? Does it a) hurt? b) give you breathing room? c) piss someone else off? d) hurt someone else? and/or e) set you back? How does it increase the pressure? Remember the moral line defined by your Premise, and remember that the players are the authors!

And Color permeates a Narrativist game same as any other. Life o' Crime: is it Thatcher's England? Victoria's England? Shakespeare's England? Bush's US? Hoover's US? Colonial Massachussetts? Mars? The Kingdom of Thringbora? The details change, but the core of character situated in setting - the fit characters locked into conflict defined by a moral line - doesn't.​

And here's something he wrote about 9 months ago <Revisiting GNS – lumpley games>:

Here’s the dynamic that narrativism refers to:

1. The PCs have vision, self-interests, best interests, passion, an ideological commitment: something they want and care about. Lajos Egri says “passionate.”
2. Their passions put them in conflict with others — other PCs or other NPCs, it doesn’t matter. Their passions oppose others’, threaten others’ interests, provoke others into passionate reaction.
3. Both the PCs and their counterparts are equipped to pursue their passions in conflict. Egri says “fit.” They’re physically equipped, emotionally equipped, morally equipped; they have skills, tools, initiative, stamina, followthrough, staying power.
4. Nobody pre-plans how it’s going to turn out. The characters are passionate, conflicted, and fit; now turn them loose. Play to let them pursue their passions. Play to find out how far they go, how they escalate, who comes out on top, who compromises, what they win, what it costs, what they prioritize, what they abandon. The only way to know how it plays out, is to play it out!

That’s narrativism, nothing else.​

In the more recent passage, rather than rising conflict across a moral line we have passionate characters whose passions place them into conflict with, and provokes passionate reaction, from others. That's pretty similar, but a bit more "relaxed" about what might underlie interesting conflict. Fit characters, without pre-authorship/pre-planning, remain the same.

I think it's interesting that his thinking about this has remained so consistent over two decades of designing RPGs.

 

[darkbard]

I think it's interesting that his thinking about this has remained so consistent over two decades of designing RPGs.

And just as interesting how people continue to misunderstand what Baker is saying as a consequence of being unable to shed their prior (mis)conceptions!

 

[pemerton]

And just as interesting how people continue to misunderstand what Baker is saying as a consequence of being unable to shed their prior (mis)conceptions!

For me, probably the most important "gap" between what Baker says, and discussion I often see about "narrative" RPGing, is that narrativist RPGing has relatively little to do with how the game is played on the player side. It's mostly about how things are done on the GM side: how scenes are framed, and how consequences are established.

Framing, in conjunction with PC build, is what creates the starting point rising conflict across a moral line; and consequences are how the pressure increases, and conflicts are resolved (or not).

 

[Fenris-77]

And just as interesting how people continue to misunderstand what Baker is saying as a consequence of being unable to shed their prior (mis)conceptions!

It's rather difficult to understand what he's on about if you've only breezed through a narrativist game or two and maybe read a couple of blog posts. It a pretty significantly different, hmmm, perhaps interpretation of RPG play than one finds in (for example) most OSR games. If you attempt to bring the interpretational framework of the latter to bear on understanding the former you inevitably get gross misunderstanding.

That's not to say that anyone must play those sorts of games or enjoy them. It's certainly possible to understand them fully and still not like them. However, it is also still the case that understanding isn't always an ingredient in critique.

 

[Fenris-77]

For me, probably the most important "gap" between what Baker says, and discussion I often see about "narrative" RPGing, is that narrativist RPGing has relatively little to do with how the game is played on the player side. It's mostly about how things are done on the GM side: how scenes are framed, and how consequences are established.

Framing, in conjunction with PC build, is what creates the starting point rising conflict across a moral line; and consequences are how the pressure increases, and conflicts are resolved (or not).

I think that how the player invests themselves in their character is pretty different. It's a much more active process than the equivalent that's sometimes the case in other games where the players can have a grand time sitting back and letting the game come to them, so to speak. That doesn't work so well in a game like Apocalypse World.

If we consider the character (both as mechanics and more conceptually) as a rubric for how to interact with the setting I think we can see some important differences.

 

[pemerton]

I think that how the player invests themselves in their character is pretty different. It's a much more active process than the equivalent that's sometimes the case in other games where the players can have a grand time sitting back and letting the game come to them, so to speak. That doesn't work so well in a game like Apocalypse World.

If we consider the character (both as mechanics and more conceptually) as a rubric for how to interact with the setting I think we can see some important differences.

I can see that.

 

[darkbard]

For me, probably the most important "gap" between what Baker says, and discussion I often see about "narrative" RPGing, is that narrativist RPGing has relatively little to do with how the game is played on the player side. It's mostly about how things are done on the GM side: how scenes are framed, and how consequences are established.

Framing, in conjunction with PC build, is what creates the starting point rising conflict across a moral line; and consequences are how the pressure increases, and conflicts are resolved (or not).

Just to be sure (tho I think I understand your position well from many previous conversations): what you're saying is that Baker articulates how vital players driving the various elements is for narrativist play, whereas many who seem to misunderstand such play place all the onus upon the GM (in situation framing and so on), yes? Because they rely upon a mindset erroneously (for such narrativist games) smuggled in from the assumptions of trad games.

 

[zakael19]

Here is something Vincent Baker wrote a bit more than twenty years ago <lumpley games: Roleplaying Theory, Hardcore>:

After setup, what a game's rules do is control how you resolve one situation into the next. If you're designing a Narrativist game, what you need are rules that create a) rising conflict b) across a moral line c) between fit characters d) according to the authorship of the players. Every new situation should be a step upward in that conflict, toward a climax and resolution. Your rules need to provoke the players, collaboratively, into escalating the conflict, until it can't escalate no more.​

​

Character creation in a Narrativist game might work by creating characters who, in some key way, have nowhere else to go. Life o' Crime, the rpg: create a character who owes somebody more money than he can repay.​

​

Setting in a Narrativist game might work by applying pressure to that key point in the characters. Life o' Crime: there's recession, few jobs, no way up or out, but worse class difference than ever before anywhere. You see wealth but no opportunity.​

​

Situation in a Narrativist game works by increasing the pressure. Life o' Crime: Someone depends on your character to bring home groceries and pay rent. Someone else has just been evicted and is facing homelessness. Someone else asks you if you know where to get drugs. Someone else just got beaten by the authorities. Someone else just got beaten by the guy you owe money to. Someone else offers to cut you in on a job. Someone else wants the whole take for himself. Someone else knew you'd never amount to anything. Someone else can't be trusted. Someone else can be.​

​

System in a Narrativist game works, again, by resolving one situation into the next. Life o' Crime: what do you do? How does it work out for you? Does it a) hurt? b) give you breathing room? c) piss someone else off? d) hurt someone else? and/or e) set you back? How does it increase the pressure? Remember the moral line defined by your Premise, and remember that the players are the authors!​

​

And Color permeates a Narrativist game same as any other. Life o' Crime: is it Thatcher's England? Victoria's England? Shakespeare's England? Bush's US? Hoover's US? Colonial Massachussetts? Mars? The Kingdom of Thringbora? The details change, but the core of character situated in setting - the fit characters locked into conflict defined by a moral line - doesn't.​

And here's something he wrote about 9 months ago <Revisiting GNS – lumpley games>:

Here’s the dynamic that narrativism refers to:​

1. The PCs have vision, self-interests, best interests, passion, an ideological commitment: something they want and care about. Lajos Egri says “passionate.”
2. Their passions put them in conflict with others — other PCs or other NPCs, it doesn’t matter. Their passions oppose others’, threaten others’ interests, provoke others into passionate reaction.
3. Both the PCs and their counterparts are equipped to pursue their passions in conflict. Egri says “fit.” They’re physically equipped, emotionally equipped, morally equipped; they have skills, tools, initiative, stamina, followthrough, staying power.
4. Nobody pre-plans how it’s going to turn out. The characters are passionate, conflicted, and fit; now turn them loose. Play to let them pursue their passions. Play to find out how far they go, how they escalate, who comes out on top, who compromises, what they win, what it costs, what they prioritize, what they abandon. The only way to know how it plays out, is to play it out!

That’s narrativism, nothing else.​

In the more recent passage, rather than rising conflict across a moral line we have passionate characters whose passions place them into conflict with, and provokes passionate reaction, from others. That's pretty similar, but a bit more "relaxed" about what might underlie interesting conflict. Fit characters, without pre-authorship/pre-planning, remain the same.

I think it's interesting that his thinking about this has remained so consistent over two decades of designing RPGs.

You did leave out the preface, which I think is pretty important to include in the context of your post and reinforces your ultimate point:

“I think that the best way to understand narrativism is as a big, long-running game jam.

At the Forge, we thought that narrativism was its own kind of game, it’s own kind of gameplay, but I don’t think that’s true anymore. What’s true is that narrativism is a thing that games and gameplay can do.”

 

[pemerton]

Just to be sure (tho I think I understand your position well from many previous conversations): what you're saying is that Baker articulates how vital players driving the various elements is for narrativist play, whereas many who seem to misunderstand such play place all the onus upon the GM (in situation framing and so on), yes? Because they rely upon a mindset erroneously (for such narrativist games) smuggled in from the assumptions of trad games.

I think what you're saying here is close to @Fenris-77.

I was making a different point: that a lot of commentary on "narrative" RPGing from those who seem not to be especially into it emphasise (so called) "narrative" mechanics - roughly, player-side fiat (either for situation, or for consequence). Whereas I was saying that the key difference between narrativist play and more "trad" or conventional play is what the GM does - especially, how the GM frames scenes/establishes situation; and how, as part of the resolution system, consequences are established and what those consequences are.

You can play narrativist with Rolemaster or AD&D (I know, I've done it). This doesn't require anything fancy on the player side (though as @Fenris-77 said, it requires a type of effort from the players) - no "narrative mechanics". It does require the GM to adopt a different approach to framing and consequences from what is set out in classic D&D rulebooks or in 2nd ed AD&D.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, I agree, narrativist play and 'narrative mechanics' aren't the same thing.