What makes an TTRPG a "Narrative Game" (Daggerheart Discussion)

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure. I did not doubt it was otherwise. Take it up with @pemerton who seems to have an issue with the player declared stakes of royal abdication not being accepted.

But that's the point, if the premise is centered around getting rid of the king, then of course the players don't start with the fictional position required to achieve it merely with an action declaration! If they can, then the premise was not sensible in the first place, unless you want a vinette for a game....

I mean this is equivalent to criticism of B/X because I can theoretically write a dungeon consisting of a single room full of treasure guarded by a lone kobold.

 

[gban007]

Give me an example. What does this mean in practice? What counts as "thematic character intent?" Why didn't character creation in this narrative game give us such? Why didn't the mechanics guide us to employ such?

I don't know - I'm very much a trad player, and more and more on AP rather than sandbox these days due to time constraints, though dabbling in the likes of FFG Star Wars and Modiphius' 2d20 systems that I think support a bit of narrative sort of structure, but it does feel like the mechanics are there to support intent, and if the intent isn't there, the mechanics won't force it.

For D&D by 'default' as such, skills are typically success or failure - do I hit this person, do I find something, do I disarm the trap - and outside of perhaps taking advantage of critical successes / critical failures to bring something else into it, you either do it or you don't.

FFG Star Wars on the other hand has the triumph / despair that allows for adding a bit more into it, (I recall one good one that we enjoyed where my ultra perceptive character rolled abysmally in trying to be a lookout for another character scaling a water tower - so end result was my character for some reason was keeping a close eye on a completely different water tower and missed the bad guys coming up). But how you use these can then frame what happens - they are there to potentially facilitate quite big shifts happening - maybe you succeed at a cost, and the cost is more bad guys turning up, or you fail with some benefit, and so didn't stop bomb going off, but maybe partially deflected it, or you saved someone who may not have otherwise been saved. Or a success is compounded to be even better some how, or a failure even worse. But that relies on you using those do achieve it - my example above is probably quite soft, in as much as looking at a different watch tower didn't really make a difference to what was going on - certain events were still happening, but could have used it for me to be ambushed maybe, or for additional bad guys to turn up, for my scope to be broken and give future penalties etc.

My understanding of these PBTA games is they push the above even further - but you need to be willing to use them, if you just use a special failure to not be much more than a fumble from D&D, or a spectacular success to not be much more than a critical, or immunity to future saving throws in this combat or the like, then you're not really achieving anything more than playing D&D as such, just possibly a different means of resolution that you prefer( maybe you prefer rolling low than high for example, or rolling more or less dice, or more or less checks) - but outcomes end up similar.

But if intent is to instead really go wild as such, and so fighting a dragon and spectacular success means somehow you learn the dragon is attacking because it is defending an egg or something, bringing something new but consistent with prior fiction into the fiction, it could allow for quite different paths forward, rather than just a big hit on the dragon. Similarly a spectacular fail may lead to a character / NPC / macguffin being in a potentially catastrophic position where needs more than a simple heal to get going, and forces more decisions on to characters than otherwise would have been the case.

On flip side, if playing D&D and really want to use criticals as ones that allow for above sort of swings, then can also drive D&D more towards that PBTA style as well, just the odds of swings will be lower, unless you maybe tweak to say within 5 of a success is moderate, more than 5 away is critical, more than 10 is spectacular or the like - but then having to bend the mechanics rather than maybe using mechanics better suited to facilitate this.

 

[innerdude]

I don't own Blades in the Dark, but I do own a hack of it called Court of Blades, so if the answer isn't one-to-one with BitD, bear with me.

But when I look at the Court of Blades character sheet, I see stats, a spot for gear, the name of a general profession/playbook, a list of possible bonds, and a list of special abilities.

But none of that establishes thematic character intent and stakes, at least not directly.

All of that raw material translates into thematic character intent and stakes when you, the player, begin to examine how that plays out in your character's personality, approaches to authority and law, approaches to virtue and vice, law and chaos, etc.

Character intent is the driving psychological force that weaves its way into the how and why your character acts.

It doesn't have to be super philosophical (though I find it more enjoyable if it is), but it takes that next step.

And then you have to put that psychological force to the test by acting on it in the game world----and often acting on it in the gameworld to the detriment of the character.

You're playing to find out if your character's thematic intentions and stakes are truly important to him/her----or perhaps through play, some other unknown aspects of your character are revealed along the way.

And the whole point of narrative-style play is about uncovering those hidden revelations, or forcefully validating that yes, I really did grasp the essence of this character.

And your GM has to play along with the fact that for the system to work, these character elements take precedence over his/her control over the "living world". The GM has to HONOR those intentions and stakes when you've proven through play through taking actions and risks, using the mechanics, and living with the consequences.

If failure happens, then that's something to be parsed through character analysis, much as you would a protagonist in a book.

If you don't WANT any of that---it's of no importance to you or the GM---then get the hell out. It's doing none of you any good and you're probably wasting your time.

If you're happening to have fun playing Blades in the Dark anyway, then more power to you, but to me it's sort of like playing Catan with my in-laws. They have so many houserules to make the game less competitive and more "happy friendly" that I hardly see it as the same game.

Same thing with BitD. No reason, as @Manbearcat so ably stated, to play the game while actually not playing the game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So you are saying if the DM decides the fictional position doesn’t meet the requirements that the PC cannot even make that move?

The rule is that the players declare actions, not moves. The GM evaluates the action in the context of the fiction, and may either decide that the player triggers some move, or not. This is meant to be a fairly objective evaluation, not some jerk around. Most PbtAs explicitly state that the table can call this if it seems wrong. Usually players know their books and it's pretty obvious. If a move wasn't triggered, the GM simply responds with a soft move.

In the example of the duke/king the PC probably needs leverage to even trigger a move. Without it the GM is going to move and that move should follow the principles and practices of the game in question.

 

[zakael19]

I admit might not fully understand the advice, nor @Manbearcat's commentary regarding it, as I feel both are written in unnecessarily confusing manner.

I'd imagine what the advice mainly results, is focusing things on the players' goals, and forcing the players to actually think and articulate their goals. To certain degree it is a good thing. When done in mid action it also might put people in the "writers' room mode" like I feel happens habitually in the Blades, as we are focusing on structure of the game rather than the actual PoV of the characters.

This advice also isn't something I'd call a mechanic, it is a principle.

When an entire system is built around them and explicitly tells GMs things like “doing plot is antithetical to this game, stop it right now” it’s more “commandments” or “how to play the game as intended.” Thats the absolute key to narrative games - played as written they don’t allow the GM to adjust the fictional positioning in a way a player didn’t intend, espouse, or understand as at risk without fundamentally going against the guide to play.

You can’t stop a person from doing what they want, but you can directly tell them “if you do this, it’s wrong and not how to play the game.”

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But we have. You simply don't accept them or fail to see them.

For instance, many of the story now games have an entire character and group creation process. Apocalypse World does it, Stonetop does it, Blades does it. You don't create your characters in isolation, you create them together, and then decide what brought them together and how they're connected and what is their place in the world.

D&D does not have this.

You then say "yeah, but you could do it if you wanted" but that misses the point. The point is that in the games listed above, you must do it that way (or at least, you should per the direction of the book).

Sure. That part I get. But, yes, it indeed is something you can do in any game and a lot of people do. Like session zeros where you plan your characters together have been a common thing for a long time. So whilst I totally see the value of building the characters and connections this way together, I also don't see it as anything particularly special. It is just codification of a common practice.

I also was really perplexed when I learned that people who obviously like the result this has and think it is good thing still do not do it in D&D because the book explicitly didn't tell them to. To me that is bizarre.

I mean, the way you talk about it doesn't seem like you're that invested. You talk exuberantly about speaking in character to another player about stuff that is more flavor than meaningful, but when you've talked about your Blades game, it's pretty blase.

I don't know if this is because it's how you feel, or simply because you're trying to reinforce your view of the game through tone, or if there's some other reason.

I think you're reading too much into this. I am invested in the game just fine. Like I don't think it is the best game ever, but I like it and have fun. I don't think one's emotional commitment necessarily comes across in discussions like this, especially as this is pretty meta.

I like my character well enough. He is a low class street rat with a substance abuse problem. I think he works nicely as contrast with some of the other characters who are more posh. I basically wanted to make a character who is from really poor conditions, who truly knows what it is to have nothing, and even though I think he is basically a decent person, he also is willing to do questionable stuff to get out of that position. I feel I should do more with him, but I'm not quite sure what. Like he is a bit passive, because I am rather socially dominant person and I wanted to make character that is not like that.

Have you read the book? They're clearly listed there on page 182- 186. @Manbearcat 's post #928 gets into some of it.

I have read it. Well, most of it. But I admit I don't remember all. I think the principles have broadly speaking been followed though.

Perhaps I am not quite sure at what extent we as players should work as co-creators. We certainly keep adding stuff to the setting, but it is unorganised and informal. I also don't think I play my character cautiously, though he is a bit of a coward. But as player I am willing to take risks, but perhaps narratively I feel it works better if my character is pushed to take risks, is you understand what I mean.

Something illuminating. Anything that includes enough information for us to look at it and examine it. Your sparse descriptions can indeed be about any game at all... so they're not going to tell us anything about Blades as a game. Same as if you were making similar statements about your D&D game, they'd not tell us anything about the process of play.

Why were the Lampblacks your enemy? Were you successful in getting the Crows to go after them? What was the result mechanically? Did you take a -1 with them? Did you take a +1 with the Crows? I mean, the Faction game is meant to be player facing... how did your crew stand with these other ones? Did you ever go to war with any of them?

IIRC we needed to choose in the beginning a faction we had some schism with. We chose Lampblacks as the fit with the backstory of one of the PCs, a nobleman whose personal rival the Lampblack leader Bazso Baz was. The PC was a former member but had betrayed them and stolen their sewer maps (having of those maps was one of our crew features.) And I don't remember the exact mechanical results anymore, it was a while ago. We eventually went to war with the Lampblacks and killed their leader. They're no more. My character landed the killed their boss when I finally managed to sneak behind him though a window. I feel it would have been thematically better if our nobleman whose enemy he was had landed the killing blow, but at that point he had duelled Bazso for a while and I was afraid for his well being.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But that's the point, if the premise is centered around getting rid of the king, then of course the players don't start with the fictional position required to achieve it merely with an action declaration! If they can, then the premise was not sensible in the first place, unless you want a vinette for a game....

I mean this is equivalent to criticism of B/X because I can theoretically write a dungeon consisting of a single room full of treasure guarded by a lone kobold.

Yes, I am agreein with you! I don't know which of us is confused, but I don't think players in narrative games can solve thing with one roll like this. But @pemerton seems to. So argue this with him!

 

[thefutilist]

What would you say to the notion that there's a continuum between entirely predefined plot trad play and what @innerdude outlined, with your mix of predetermined elements and Narrativist play somewhere in the middle?

To break it down a bit further. A few things often get conflated.

What I want from a system

What my character wants

What I want for the fiction (as an audience member)

Diegetic conflict resolution

Rolling for story control


I’ve done this kind of reversal before to show my point but I’ll do it again. So in the post where I declare the princess dies because of prep.

What if:

I as GM am really devastated by this. I loved the princess as a character and I thought her cause was worthy.

The player had more ambiguous feelings because he thought the princess was a zealot and he didn’t really want his character getting mixed up with her revolutionary nonsense.

I mean I think you know all this but the above is a trick I use to untie the above conflated bits.

 

[Campbell]

So, what's great about the prompts we see in Daggerheart or most PbtA games aren't that we have questions or connections at all. It's that the questions are provocative and if answered correctly will result in actionable stuff we can frame conflicts around. However, what actually sets the model of play apart is that we stop there. We establish what we are asked to establish and leave flexibility to define things in a way that keeps play focused on the essence of the characters and settings. It's that we don't lock the details in until we absolutely have to that helps keep play focused.

Together as play unfolds we all find out more about these characters and these places.

 

[innerdude]

To break it down a bit further. A few things often get conflated.

What I want from a system

What my character wants

What I want for the fiction (as an audience member)

Diegetic conflict resolution

Rolling for story control


I’ve done this kind of reversal before to show my point but I’ll do it again. So in the post where I declare the princess dies because of prep.

What if:

I as GM am really devastated by this. I loved the princess as a character and I thought her cause was worthy.

The player had more ambiguous feelings because he thought the princess was a zealot and he didn’t really want his character getting mixed up with her revolutionary nonsense.

I mean I think you know all this but the above is a trick I use to untie the above conflated bits.

That's all fine and good. But the point of mechanics that point to fiction-first, non-"diegetic" conflict resolution in games like Ironsworn are to keep the character stakes relevant.

So, the player is ambivalent to the fate of the princess. Okay, so, why is the player putting so much at stake for the character to be involved with her? There's a disconnect there. The player isn't playing toward thematic character intentions and stakes. Or if the player is playing toward those stakes, then (s)he's doing so playing a character that (s)he isn't comfortable with. (S)he has built a character that (s)he isn't interested in exploring. So why is (s)he playing that character?

I can see the point, being that "Believe it or not, I was helping out the player avoid a rabbit hole of a plot development that (s)he wasn't interested in at all."

But in narrative-style RPG-ing, this is a clear fail state. If interacting with the princess isn't of interest to the player, (s)he shouldn't be investing character stakes into it. If those are the only stakes of interest made available to the player, it's a additionally a fail state by the GM for framing scenes and situations that don't speak to the character's evinced thematic intentions and stakes. It's even further a fail state because it seems like neither the player nor GM are communicating through character build, world building, out-of-character discussion what they want the themes and stakes to be.

If the solution to the problem is, "I as GM am going to arbitrarily kill off this NPC character we've invested significant play time around evincing character intent and stakes, because the player is bored / disinterested," then the question of "What kind of game are we really aiming for?" is strikingly misaligned between GM and player.