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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5085459" data-attributes="member: 2067">I have spent a lot of time...perhaps too much time...figuring out what it means to be a "narrative GM."I'm a fiction writer, and an actor, so I've picked up my share of books, classes, and techniques that advise writers on how to write, and actors on how to become a character. There's one comparison I find useful in this discussion more than any other.Independence Day vs. Signs.Set aside how good or bad you think the movies are for a minute, and look at how they tell their stories. They're both about aliens coming to take over the planet, but Independence Day is plot-driven, lean-forward DMing. Aliens come, do stuff, and the PC's...er...protagonists...need to stop 'em, or Everyone Will Die Forever. Signs is character-driven, lean-back DMing. Aliens come to do stuff, but this is more about how individual PC's...er...characters...use the event in their own conflicts, than about the event itself. It doesn't demand an instant resolution.Independence Day says "Aliens are coming! React!" There's a clear BBEG. Signs says "There's aliens out there. Tell me what you do." There's aliens, but Mel Gibson has more conflict within himself than with them. Every game is going to contain a mixture of these elements, over the course of many sessions, but each individual session probably falls into one camp or the other, and individual DM's probably come down more often on one side than the other. Gygax's style above is "There's a dungeon, do stuff," while Piratecat's main style sounds more "Here's a threat, react!" For me, I think about this through the lens of FFZ. To be true to the source material, FFZ has got to be strongly narrative. Heck, one of the big (and sometimes valid) criticisms of the FF games is that all you have to do is press a button to advance the plot. But the tabletop can't run on rails that rigid. Players at a table need to contribute something of their own to the game, because that is part of the inherent, psychological fun of an RPG: contributing to a shared reality. So FFZ has a powerful narrative element. Every year, you're expected to tell a story from beginning to end, with the GM and a handful of players both providing the thrust.FFZ says "There is a villain. They are doing things that will eventually affect your character in some way. This is something you must react to. There are also other things out there -- other villains, threats, threads, and ideas -- that you may involve yourself with or not. If you do, the villain might relate to them. If not, they're still there, you're just not paying attention to them as a group." FFZ is mostly Independence Day with a sprinkling of Signs. FFZ has a dramatic throughline, which is basically this question: "Will the characters succeed at their goals, or fail?" Players choose the goals for the character, and then conflict, from the DM, stands in the way of these goals. The villain is made to be the source of the most dangerous of these conflicts (though probably not every conflict), and the DM uses the motives, desires, and personalities of the characters to nudge them into the conflict with the villain. The game, the random element, determines whether they succeed or fail in each challenge, and in the ultimate challenge.Games that lack this explicit plot structure still have conflicts and characters and goals, but they are not codified, or defined. Every game has a three-act structure in some way, it maybe just is not called out explicitly as such (indeed, that structure is part of what, psychologically, makes games of all sorts so riveting -- games are drama, every game is a story, though not necessarily vice-versa). Games are inherently stories. A "storytelling GM" just calls this out explicitly, and tends to be more plot-focused. Stuff happens, characters react. A "sandbox GM" lets the stories evolve organically, and tends to be more character-focused. Character choice (player choice) drives the action more than anything else.I don't think any GM can be a pure example of one or the other without the game being kind of ruined for it. If my characters can do anything, but nothing is happening around them, that's dull. If my character needs to react to things that are happening, but their reaction doesn't accomplish anything the GM couldn't have just done on her own, that's frustrating.</blockquote>

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