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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9317478" data-attributes="member: 82106">See, I like this definition pretty well. I could probably nit-pick the first half of it a tiny bit, but lets not. The second part, the 'what it is not' I think is pretty much spot on. So, what would be the thing that does this establishing a 'main plot' and 'warping everything'? That was why I mentioned Phandelver a while back, because it seems very typical of D&amp;D adventures these days. The players DO get to choose where to go, but not much else. There IS a main plot, &quot;you have been tasked with finding an ancient lost mine and getting the information back to your employers.&quot; Narrativist systems work to produce something like the former. Just taking the example of Dungeon World, there is no story because there isn't, initially, any 'myth' to base that story on. There's no core premise baked into the system, beyond the PCs are heroes, which sets up the possibilities for the rest of it. The GM EXCLUSIVELY defines the setting, with effectively no mechanics to let the players do that, so the GM 'owns' the conflicts/obstacles. However, the game explicitly defines its 'ethos' and supporting techniques such that the GM asks questions, uses the answers, etc. Given that the GM has no story agenda and no myth, this ties everything back to the players! This is why we call designs like this 'narrativist'. The GM even gets to define stuff that the players react to, AFTER the PCs have been created, their bonds defined, etc. and the first session played.I really have nothing against trad play. I just think it is considerably less 'about' the PCs. The test for me is, could a given setup simply swap in different PCs and go ahead? That really couldn't make sense in DW play, for example. Its built AROUND the players and their characters, whereas D&amp;D, yeah, it may EVENTUALLY get close, but you could definitely plug different characters in at the start and still end up with the gist of the action being almost identical.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 9317478, member: 82106"] See, I like this definition pretty well. I could probably nit-pick the first half of it a tiny bit, but lets not. The second part, the 'what it is not' I think is pretty much spot on. So, what would be the thing that does this establishing a 'main plot' and 'warping everything'? That was why I mentioned Phandelver a while back, because it seems very typical of D&D adventures these days. The players DO get to choose where to go, but not much else. There IS a main plot, "you have been tasked with finding an ancient lost mine and getting the information back to your employers." Narrativist systems work to produce something like the former. Just taking the example of Dungeon World, there is no story because there isn't, initially, any 'myth' to base that story on. There's no core premise baked into the system, beyond the PCs are heroes, which sets up the possibilities for the rest of it. The GM EXCLUSIVELY defines the setting, with effectively no mechanics to let the players do that, so the GM 'owns' the conflicts/obstacles. However, the game explicitly defines its 'ethos' and supporting techniques such that the GM asks questions, uses the answers, etc. Given that the GM has no story agenda and no myth, this ties everything back to the players! This is why we call designs like this 'narrativist'. The GM even gets to define stuff that the players react to, AFTER the PCs have been created, their bonds defined, etc. and the first session played. I really have nothing against trad play. I just think it is considerably less 'about' the PCs. The test for me is, could a given setup simply swap in different PCs and go ahead? That really couldn't make sense in DW play, for example. Its built AROUND the players and their characters, whereas D&D, yeah, it may EVENTUALLY get close, but you could definitely plug different characters in at the start and still end up with the gist of the action being almost identical. [/QUOTE]

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