Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9335061" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Yup.  I mean.  Edwards (the originator of the Narrativism essay) independently coming to the same conclusions that you and I did (I think he first read and played 4e like 2.5 years ago...I can't recall, I linked you the videos at the time) nearly 16 years ago is the killshot for the skepticism around 4e and Narrativism.  The conversation should have been absolutely over at that point.  I mean it should have been stone dead long ago...but it never will be.  Because the veracity of the claim and the evidence bulwarking it was never the point and will never be the point.  I'll just quickly expand on what you wrote above that links 4e to Narrativist priorities and to its successful implementation as a vehicle for such priorities.  If you see the following in a system, you're looking at Narrativist priorities and the means to that end:* Theme and premise-based goals in the hands of the players and clearly encoded, transparent tools for the pursuit of it that are taken out from behind a GM screen and made table-facing; Player-authored Quests, "say yes," magic items in the hands of players, a conflict-rich setting and Class/Background/Theme/Paragon Path/Epic Destiny that directly indexes those conflicts, conflict procedures with transparent goals + evolving situation state that attends to those goals + Burning Wheel style Fail Forward + encoded resolution that isn't up for GM veto/mediation/effery.* The advice to cut to the action and make the locus of play the conflict-charged, clear-stakes scene and then a game engine that does exactly that; Skip the gate guards and get to the fun + encounter as the site of play w/ vignettes (transition scenes) linking them and generating cascading follow-on play.* A game engine that trivially and reliably delivers duress (because the game engine is balanced such that the difficulty knobs work), crucible-type play where the things players are fighting for through their PCs in those first two bullet points can be denied to them and/or complicated merely as a matter of deftly applying and using system (therefore deriving that system's "say" in the matter).If the game you're playing features an engine and GMing advice around the above ethos and techniques...you're playing a vessel that has, at minimum, systemitized a host of interlocking dynamics that just so happen (NO WAI?!) to hyper-functionally facilitate Narrativism.</blockquote>

Verification