What makes an TTRPG a "Narrative Game" (Apocalypse World Discussion)

At the risk of oversimplifying a long, complicated discussion that spans three different models of RPGs, and the post-model world we live in:

"Narrativist" games are games that fulfill a specific kind of gaming experience Edwards thought was under-supported. His response was to envision a "narrativist" game, and lots of designers followed suit with Story Now games. But a lot of those games addressed the premise by adding more game to it. In a sense, what was wanted was something that mechanically supported that "Narrativist" premise.

But a game with sufficient mechanistic aspects becomes less narrative. You can make a game that aggressively addresses Story Now with very few freeform elements at all. As long as the players are forced to make choices that confront the premise, it can fall under the umbrella of Story Now, "narrativist" games.

So, a PbtA game that wants to address a story premise in an organic way, but it loaded with mechanistic elements to bring those situations into play, occupies a kind of mid-point on the mechanistic (determination-based) to narrative (fiction-based) pole. The structure of a PbtA itself doesn't really insist on addressing either a story premise, or just beats that are appropriate to a genre. Different games fall on different places on that measure. Thirsty Sword Lesbians is definitely more narrative than mechanistic, but it's built around a pretty concrete style of play; I'm comfortable calling it a 6 or 7 out of 10.

By the same token, you can take an old-timey D&D module, and play it completely straight. However, if you allow the players to attempt any conceivable action, and the GM supports that freedom by trying to be even-handed, and the whole group is completely ready to go "off-script" if that occurs in the natural course of play, and the players are caught up in the imaginative act of being their characters, then that also reaches toward a mid-point. Like, the last time I played classic D&D, we did Castle Amber, and I'll tell you what, it was a wild ride. In the background there were hit points and experience points and so forth, but in the forefront, it was about the things we did. If you think of Castle Amber is a playground in which to experiment with different actions, and the GM is willing and able to extend the limited rules-set to adjudicate actions on the fly, I don't think it's hard to get a game that is like a 4 out of 10 on the narrative-o-tron.

I don't think you have level 9 or 10 narrative play without getting pretty close to notecard games, or mostly freeform. Similarly, I don't think you can get down to like a 1 (almost entirely mechanistic) without using a very mechanistic system and restricting the area of play to something that is pretty easy to quantify in the chosen system. Something like Rolemaster actually won't do it, because for all its mechanistic qualities, it tends to actually ignore things that are considered trivial for adventurers. Something like Dungeon Fantasy, played with a focus on tactics, can probably do like a 2.
I get where you're coming from, but I think Baker cut the pie in a different way, so to speak. Not that it isn't possible for PbtA games to be more or less crunchy, but as a general rule it isn't 'crunch' in the traditional sense of added rules subsystems and such that doing the work here, it is just what he called layers 2 and 3, the moves and playbooks. The ONLY appreciable differences between AW and DW are in terms of the central thematic premise, and then the actual playbooks and moves. Totally different games, very close to equally Narrativist, with effectively identical mechanics (advancement is handled a bit differently, some bits like that).

So, Narrativist games can focus on any of a wide range of potential premises. Those can be drawn from different sources too. And thus the exact nature of the conflict can be a bit different, but the construct is basically the same, you just use it for slightly different ends in different games. Monsterhearts characters do their thing, and Apocalypse World characters do theirs, but the workings are the same to a high degree. I think it would be a mistake, generally speaking, to rank them in some kind of ranking of mechanistic to narrativistic.
 

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So what really is STORY NOW, if S category was such a mess? I said similar in the DaggerHeart NARRATIVE GAME thread.

What changes does the STORY NOW fix for the S?
Just to add, I think it is pretty safe to say that Baker was clearly influenced by Edwards, but at the same time that doesn't particularly mean he does, or ever has, subscribed to every idea that Edwards put forward. I'd also be leery of supposed wholesale disavowals bandied about by people potentially unfriendly to a particular theory. Yes, we understand, RE has moved on from the GNS/Big Model/whatever. I don't know of anywhere he's particularly articulated what that moving on consists of, but if you got the news from these forums, you may want a 10 pound block of salt to go with anything concluded from it.
 

LesserThan

Explorer
don't know of anywhere he's particularly articulated what that moving on consists of, but if you got the news from these forums
The video is where I got it when he was interviewed, "GNS, 20 years later". It is in one of my posts on the Apocalypse Narrative Game thread. Is that this thread, or are we in DaggerHeart one? I am already confused. :(

Post 10, this thread, in the spoiler due to Robs language.
 

The video is where I got it when he was interviewed, "GNS, 20 years later". It is in one of my posts on the Apocalypse Narrative Game thread. Is that this thread, or are we in DaggerHeart one? I am already confused. :(

Post 10, this thread, in the spoiler due to Robs language.
Yeah, I have never had anything like the patience to listen to these guys talk for 2 hours. The parts I've listened to aren't DISAVOWING the ideas, though. Edwards, as always, seems unhappy about the (mis?)use of his ideas in terms of labeling styles of play, or game designs, vs GOALS OF PLAY. I mean, I don't want to say too much, because I've sent very little time paying attention to him in recent years.
 

pawsplay

Hero
I get where you're coming from, but I think Baker cut the pie in a different way, so to speak. Not that it isn't possible for PbtA games to be more or less crunchy, but as a general rule it isn't 'crunch' in the traditional sense of added rules subsystems and such that doing the work here, it is just what he called layers 2 and 3, the moves and playbooks. The ONLY appreciable differences between AW and DW are in terms of the central thematic premise, and then the actual playbooks and moves. Totally different games, very close to equally Narrativist, with effectively identical mechanics (advancement is handled a bit differently, some bits like that).

The Moves are the game. Also, DW is just different than the mainstream of PbtA games.

I freely admit I slice the pie a little different. The Big Model / GNS doesn't really admit that "narrative" is a thing. It doesn't even mention story as something involved in Exploration. "Developing a story" is a Creative Agenda in The Big Model, which suggests simulationist and gamist games don't have a relationship with story-making. Which would be factually untrue. As I said, Story Now I believe is something present in all fully-formed RPGs, to a greater or lesser extent. The fact that some players may have a greater or less conscious awareness of these principles in an RPG doesn't make "story through exploration" an aspect of specifically narrativist play. How else would story even show up in a "simulationist" experience?

So, not needing the model, I generally don't need the vocabulary, and I tend to avoid the vocabulary in favor of clear language that is understood by people not indoctrinated in the Model. "Narrativist" is a word I don't ever use except when engaging in the Model, and in that case, to criticize the deficiencies I see in it. IMO, Edwards didn't succeed at encapsulating Gamist because he largely did not understand the experiences or motivations of people who wanted to play with the game pieces more.

In my view, because PbtA games tend to veer straight into making "moving parts" out of techniques, PbtA games have a lot of features that are very accessible to gamist play; writing playbooks is the work of someone who really likes writing games, as games. A typical PbtA game has plenty of moving parts that can be employed by someone wanting to play strategically. They also model beats, tropes, and other aspects of their genre; in fact, a PbtA game doesn't exist outself the genre it simulates. They are designed for Story Now by emergently creating actual events, and not just mimicking some kind of structure. Saying a PbtA game is, by design, "narrativist," is automatically just not true. It looks, feels, and smells like something that could easily be called "abashed" and if it's narrativist in play, it's by drifting.

A "narrative" game is not a bunch of die rolls, tables, dials, wheels, and cards. It's a game that exists mostly between the decisions predicated by those things. It is primarily fictive, not mechanistic.

PbtA is pretty darn mechanistic. It is narrative mainly by dint of rewarding play on beats, by using somewhat freeform resolution, and not necesarrily focused on quantitive "competitive" or challenge-based play, but on playing the results. But it's not heavily any of of those things. It's far less narrative than many other formats I've played. In many ways, it offers the structure of one of those hybrid solo RPG / CYOA things, but with the benefit of a game master and multiplayer. You make choices, you roll on a table, some level of favor, disfavor, or overwhelming favor occurs.

It's clearly inspired by the Story Now premise, but in my eyes, it's pretty clearly a hybrid format game that blends Story Now with let's-let-the-dice-decide, I'm-having-a-moment-as-my-PC, and outright cheetoh-ism.
 

kenada

Legend
Supporter
When was it made and when was the "Story Now" thing written?

Edwards said "recently" GNS theory was a mistake he regrets from the Forge days.

Thanks for sharing this. I ended up staying up to listen to it all. 😂

I was surprised to hear he ran 3e D&D and didn’t seem to have anything bad to say about the experience, especially compared to what he discussed later about some PbtA and story game design problems he sees.

The issue with those GNS essays seems to be the way people want to identify with the various goals of play. If his replies in the Youtube comments are any indication, he views that dimly. He does still believe in his model for analyzing play though. Personally, of the ideas from the Forge, I’ve found that more useful for working on my homebrew system than any stupid taxonomies (GNS, GDS, cultures of play, or whatever).

I also liked his commentary on the Forge glossary, which is that you mostly don’t need it.
 



Wolfpack48

Adventurer
Thanks for sharing this. I ended up staying up to listen to it all. 😂

I was surprised to hear he ran 3e D&D and didn’t seem to have anything bad to say about the experience, especially compared to what he discussed later about some PbtA and story game design problems he sees.

The issue with those GNS essays seems to be the way people want to identify with the various goals of play. If his replies in the Youtube comments are any indication, he views that dimly. He does still believe in his model for analyzing play though. Personally, of the ideas from the Forge, I’ve found that more useful for working on my homebrew system than any stupid taxonomies (GNS, GDS, cultures of play, or whatever).

I also liked his commentary on the Forge glossary, which is that you mostly don’t need it.
Also liked his commentary about all the fighting going on regarding the various approaches. At the end of the day, he's looking for friends to spend more time together having fun and less time fighting over semantics and terminology and techniques. His experience of a D&D play helped me understand that he's more interested in developing things like character and party goals than in playing a particular system. Also that GNS discussions are largely unproductive.

Also enjoyed his perspective of the village as a character (Stonetop?)
 
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