What is a "Narrative Mechanic"?

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't think it is just about the level of zoom. In low level zoom we don't usually care about the differentiation when the items are used either. "The mechanic fixes the engine using her toolkit." Some tools might be occasionally described as flavour, but in practical purposes "the mechanic's toolkit" is the item. I feel there is difference between this and quantum collapsing completely different items for completely different purposes like with the prepared feat.

I'm not really hating the feat here. Seems like a fine way to abstract such a character concept. But I still think it clearly is a narrative mechanic in a way that just not caring about the exact details of screwdrivers really isn't.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m assuming you’re kidding, but to comment, There’s no quantum gear. It’s just that the gear wasn’t established in the fiction until just now.

Like that adventure I was in where we had to bring a Holy Artifact to a sacred place and, when we got there after weeks of travel, the player said, “oh, I forgot to put the Holy Relic on my character sheet”.

The DM could say, you don’t have it then, or he could adjust the fiction retroactively to say that it was there the whole time. Which is what the feat does.

You were supposed to have it the entire time, and forgot to write it down. You didn't suddenly decide you had it the whole time by using a feat of spending a unit of metacurrency. Not the same thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not at all. The difference is one of how zoomed in we are on the minutae. Let's take the same mechanic character in various games.

• In GURPS or Champions we might list all the screwdrivers, the sizes of the sockets in the socket set, the length of the tapemeasure, and more
• In D&D we'd probably list that they had a screwdriver kit and a socket set or possibly a workman's toolkit and the weight
• In Fate we'd give them the aspect "Prepared Mechanic"

It's the same character who's prepared themselves in the same way - but how much we, the players, are actually tracking varies from game to game. An obvious case in actual D&D would be the Spell Component Pouch which if you treat it the way you do (especially in the 3.X days) is in a quantum superposition that potentially contains an infinite number of live spiders. But people use Spell Component Pouches because they find actually tracking the minutae boring so we don't zoom in close enough to track what's in the component pouch just as we don't zoom in close enough to track every bowel movement the characters make.

Likewise something like a "Well Prepared" character. It's not a quantum superstate for the character. The character is well prepared. The players just don't find tracking all the preparations they've made to be part of the fun part of the game and want to focus on what they see as the interesting parts. And the character will always always know more about the setting than the player ever can; they are after all using all five of their senses within the setting for twenty four hours per day.

Being more comfortable with one level of zoom than another is one thing. But that doesn't mean that things are in a quantum superposition any more than characters stop existing in a film setting when the camera isn't on them. We just aren't watching that bit.

The players don't want to track equipment, so they use a narrative mechanic instead. That's what you're actually saying as far as I'm concerned.

And I absolutely hate the component pouch.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Everyone having some "____ degree of prepared" feels to me like a nice way to remove bean counting from a table that doesn't want it and allowing characters to be competent about it even if there player isn't.

Everyone else having a list while one is "well prepared" feels to me like Leo's tool belt in Percy Jackson.

Yup. Magic.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

You were supposed to have it the entire time, and forgot to write it down. You didn't suddenly decide you had it the whole time by using a feat of spending a unit of metacurrency. Not the same thing.

It’s the same thing. You were supposed to have a rope the entire time, you just haven’t tracked it on your sheet. The dm allows you to change the fiction retroactively because you took a feat.

In that game I mentioned, the DM ruled we didn’t have the item, so there’s that. He wasn’t someone who cared for narrative flexibility either.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"I'm the Goddamn Batman" and a track record of having pulled out bat shark repellant, while being seen to have a bulky utility belt is a story state justification; the justification is that Batman is a character who does this and has a cave full of stuff. And is the way the typical author would write him in an average story. He's got them because that's who he is and how he rolls. As for "the average gamer" - that depends what sort of gamer. D&D gamers, no, because D&D doesn't allow for that sort of character.

Sure it does, if you make the list. You want shark repellent? Put it on your sheet, or get a magic tool-creating belt. Or play a game with narrative gear.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The players don't want to track equipment, so they use a narrative mechanic instead. That's what you're actually saying as far as I'm concerned.

I'd have said it was backwards. And that the people using odd mechanics are the ones who do want to track equipment so are using process-sim mechanics.

And I absolutely hate the component pouch.

This I find unsurprising.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Almost all games have certain degrees of preparedness baked in. Like spell component pouches or not tracking bathroom breaks. And yes, some characters are better prepared than others which gives them a bit more flexibility in some games* - but it's not joked for nothing that the Bat-utility-belt is a superpower. I'm trying to think of games where there is a hard dichotomy that way that's not intentional because it is meant to be an explicit superpower or a quasi-superpower.

* Blades in the Dark gives you a number of wildcard equipment pulls per mission based on how you loaded up. You get fewer if you're dressed lightly and casually and more if you're walking around in a trench coat and with a backpack - and each character has a common list and a few class specific iteems they can pull.

BitD is a more narrative game than most D&D.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sure it does, if you make the list. You want shark repellent? Put it on your sheet, or get a magic tool-creating belt. Or play a game with narrative gear.

And this is how you end up with a 33 page character sheet. (Not an exaggeration - me playing a Summoner in a game of Pathfinder). You can play in this weird and clunky process-sim manner. But most people in my experience would rather not, which is why each edition makes this sort of equipment tracking more and more vestigial.

And if I wanted to spend everyone's time tracking equipment I'd play a computer game. It does it better than any tabletop game ever could, and tracking gets in the way of the flexibility advantages of tabletop.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It’s the same thing. You were supposed to have a rope the entire time, you just haven’t tracked it on your sheet. The dm allows you to change the fiction retroactively because you took a feat.

In that game I mentioned, the DM ruled we didn’t have the item, so there’s that. He wasn’t someone who cared for narrative flexibility either.

What game were you playing? If said game didn't use narrative rules for equipment, that's a fair ruling.