What is a "Narrative Mechanic"?

[Tony Vargas]

What are the dramatic needs of PC Adventurers?

Um.....Adventure? ... it's a trick question, isn't it?

 

[FrogReaver]

Um.....Adventure? ... it's a trick question, isn't it?

So D&D is a game about fulfilling the dramatic needs of the PC's - does that mean D&D is a narrative game?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Dammit, I knowed it were a trick question...

 

[FrogReaver]

Unless you are specific about what "affecting the story state" is, that would seem to equate to the same "all adiegetic mechanics are narrative" which I don't find to be useful.

IMO. What you are calling adiegetic mechanics are what a good chunk of people here call narrative mechanics. I think your word choice is more descriptive and better. The reason adoiegetic mechanics are getting referred to as 'narrative' mechanics is because 'narrative games' often have orders of magnitude more adiegetic mechanics than D&D. So without having the 'adiegetic' as jargon, the best spur of the moment reference to that concept that gets mustered is 'narrative' mechanics - due to how much more often they appear in narrative games.

 

[pemerton]

The reason adoiegetic mechanics are getting referred to as 'narrative' mechanics is because 'narrative games' often have orders of magnitude more adiegetic mechanics than D&D.

What RPGs do you have in mind?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

First, by analogy: a film-maker, novelist or playwright addresses their theme. The reader of their work (subject to general caveats about the author being dead etc) explores the theme. For instance, when I read LotR I am presented, by JRRT, with his ideas about the relationship between free will, providence, and resistance to evil. I don't, myself, in the act of reading, address the theme.

Second, directly: when the GM presents a situation with an intended or envisaged "correct" answer - probably the most classic example in D&D play is GM-adjudicated alignment, in which the GM has already decided what counts as good or evil - the players are exploring (in the stipulated sense) that theme. Vincent Baker sets out the contrast with addressing theme in this passage from DitV (pp 143-4):

In most RPGs with religious content, the GM arbitrates the characters’ morality. The GM plays God (or the gods) as an NPC, giving and withholding moral standing — whatever form it takes in the particular game: Faith Points, Alignment Bonuses, whatever — based on the characters’ actions. Not in Dogs.​

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In Dogs, the GM has no opportunity to pass effective judgment on a PC’s actions. Talk about ’em, sure, but never come down on them as righteous or sinful in a way that’s binding in the game world. The GM can’t give or withhold dice for the state of a PC’s soul, and thus never needs to judge it.​

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Which is good! Which is, in fact, essential. If you, the GM, can judge my character’s actions, then I won’t tell you what I think. I’ll play to whatever morality you impose on me via your rulings. Instead of posing your players an interesting ethical question and then hearing their answers, you’d be posing the question and then answering it yourself.​

In the same vein, this is why:

There cannot be any "the story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed [resolution of] theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s). . . .​

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It all comes down to this: a "player" in a Narrativist role-playing context necessarily makes the thematic choices for a given player-character.​

As well as formal cues like alignment rules, or - again a classic in D&D - the GM playing the gods and telling the cleric player what counts as adhering to or departing from divine requirements, there can also be myriad informal cues or expectations that push play towards exploration of, rather than addressing, theme and its resolution. I would conjecture, based on what I read online, that the two most common of these are (i) expectations that the players will pick up on the GM's hooks and follow along with the GM's material, and (ii) expectations that the players will play an essentially cohesive and cooperative party of characters.

I assumed it was something like this. Addressing is active creation and exploring is passive experiencing. Practically all games contain both, there might be differences in ratio, but making this a binary category distinction is absurd. This is typical Edwardsian stuff where you need to assume some strawman versions of the games being played for it to make sense.

 

[FrogReaver]

What RPGs do you have in mind?

Blades in the Dark

 

[DammitVictor]

Why? Being hungry for gold is a relational property that inheres in the rogue.

It affects the Rogue, though, and their ability to find the wealth that exists. The Rogue's hunger for gold should not make more wealth exist in the world to be found-- though what a wonderful world this would be, if wealthy billionaires actually worked that way!

 

[pemerton]

I assumed it was something like this. Addressing is active creation and exploring is passive experiencing. Practically all games contain both, there might be differences in ratio, but making this a binary category distinction is absurd. This is typical Edwardsian stuff where you need to assume some strawman versions of the games being played for it to make sense.

It's not an assertion about what games contain. It's a conception of the point (or goal, or agenda) of play, as manifested over a session or so.

And I am very confident from experience that the distinction is not absurd. I mean, it dominates nearly every discussion about player vs GM roles, about worldbuilding, about alignments, about the role of gods and religion in FRPGing, about NPCs and social encounters, on these forums!

 

[pemerton]

Blades in the Dark

I fear you may be generalising quite a bit from one example!