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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Mate, the question answering is part of the ride. And the gold being excuse to do interesting stuff is as much a thing in the Blades than in the D&D, or arguably more, as it actually is pretty central conceit in that game. Like in that game too my chracter cares about getting rich, but it is not that I as player try "win" getting money, it is just an excuse for doing the heists, which challenge and put pressure on my character. Exact same thing in D&D. And like I said, it is just one possible motivation among many, and definitely not most interesting one.

We had uses for coin, but 'get gold' was never a DRIVING force behind anything Takeo did. He did stuff, for reasons, and if he could turn it into some gold, he did, because the stuff was handy to have. So, in a few instances of play, a decision WAS made based on more or less gold being in the balance, but it wasn't central.

Like when we got sent a golden bee and told to take it and become the the minions of the gang who sent it, instead we melted it down and got 4 coin out of it, or something like that. It was amusing, but the point was to send them a message. Lo and behold, it set up a couple clocks and eventually a score or two.

 

[clearstream]

I dismiss your model and propose a different one, something more like software architecture and implementation. There ARE of course many ways to approach any given problem, but a particular construct, let us say rules/mechanics/setting/preparation/backstory/characterization/and then framing and play decisions is a UNIQUE THING, it has a unique character that is not simply a spot on a landscape. It is much closer to a mechanism or a tool. There are specific traits, functional and non-functional. You cannot simply jam different things together, or solve a given problem -well at least- by any arbitrary arrangement.

Games certainly are mechanisms, and game-as-artifact tools for fabricating said mechanisms. Recollecting that for TTRPG we can't exclude the players. And the topology I'm describing simply treats those as entries in a multidimensional (and in this case rendered visually) database. The dimensions are the "specific traits, functional and non-functional" and as I said, the sum may be greater than the parts. In saying that the "sum can be greater than the parts" I am saying that as well as traits there are meta-traits.

The topology doesn't "solve a given problem", it's a visualisation of all possible TTRPGs that takes as an underlying assumption that some combinations are more functional than others (and/or they better fit some segment of the tastes of the time). I've described it in simple three-dimensional terms, but obviously it is more than three-dimensional and it would be better to picture modes as dense or hot spots in the volume.

By "specific" you could mean that the "traits, functional and non-functional" of the mechanisms are such that TTRPGs are incommensurable. Seeing as that would contradict or void the comparisons between modes of play that many in this thread are making, I'm assuming that's not what you intend, right? It'd be a pretty radical claim so let me know: it'd be interesting to entertain it. For one thing, it'd mean that comparisons folk are making between modes are meaningless.

Were it true, then yes, games would each have distinctly different lists of dimensions and couldn't be mapped into the same conceptual space. They would still be mappable on the basis of any dimensions they shared, which is what I've observed in this thread, unless folk are making much stronger arguments for privacy or exclusivity of the "traits, functionl and non-functional" than I am reading them to.

 

[clearstream]

I honestly don't know what the spectrum is that you (and @clearstream?) are trying to articulate.

I mean, either the session of play addresses premise, or it doesn't. Either the way scenes are framed, and resolved, generates theme, or it doesn't. Either there is rising action across a moral line - driven by fit characters and apt antagonism - or there isn't.

This neatly speaks to my thesis that there are modalists and hybridists. Modalists - like you seem to attest to being - don't believe properties of play can be found in degrees: it's all or nothing. Hybridists - like @FrogReaver if I understand what they say correctly - believe that properties of play can be found in all kinds of arrangements and degrees.

I suggest that these apparently incompatible views are compatible, so long as one sees that modalists are speaking about hotspots (neighbourhoods in which similar games that appeal to some cohort are found), while hybridists are interested in drifted and yet-to-be-designed games. They're willing to focus on details and deconstruct.

So when you say a scene is framed or it is not framed. A hybridist would see the possibility for variance on at least the following

What comprises a scene? We could have different lists in mind, with many commonalities and some differences.​

Is it framed if some but not all of that list are framed? What about if some things on my list are left unframed even though your list is satisfied? And the converse.​

What if some are framed contingently? What is the list of things that can undo or ignore our framing down the line?​

Who frames what? Does it matter if that changes? What if GM frames everything? What if GM frames everything barring X? What if players frame everything? What if one player frames everything? Two? Etc.​

Are there any rules governing framing? What if I vary those?​

​

It's easy to see that hybridists are kind of annoying for modalists, pulling things apart and reassembling them in ways that modalists might never find appealing, and modalists appear unjustifiably intransigent to hybridists. That's why I put forward the dichotomy. Not to put posters neatly in one box or another, but for the sake of appreciating contrasting perspectives.

One upshot is that if one were a sincere modalist - something like the view that @AbdulAlhazred is (possibly, but probably not) espousing - then one couldn't compare TTRPGs at all. Each could only be judged precisely on its own terms. But then Daggerheart probably couldn't exist as a game design.

 

[clearstream]

On this point I don't agree (at least not based on most narrativist games i've seen described). There's usually a principle that things must 'follow from the fiction'. That's your ahead of time causality mandate. It's the principle that keeps narrativist games from being anything goes at anytime, from resolving all the narrative elements with a single dice roll at the start of the game, etc.

I believe this specifically describes fiction-first, which is an important dynamic available and of benefit to many TTRPGS.

I sometimes think it would be better known as fiction-first-and-following because one starts from the fiction, passes through system, which propels further fiction. An ongoing compelling and constraining in pursuit of what follows.

 

[clearstream]

When it comes to "completely changing all mechanics" I don't know what you have in mind. 4e D&D, for instance, doesn't completely change all of AD&D's mechanics. It doubles down on some of them and changes others.

Burning Wheel doesn't completely change all of RQ or RM's mechanics. If you're a RM or RQ player, and you look at a BW PC sheet, you're going to recognise the significance of the long list of skills, the derived attributes, etc. You'll quickly work out that spell tax is like PP or POW depletion.

But there are key elements of BW that differ from RQ and RM, and that make it better suited for narrativist play. As I've already posted in this thread, I doubt very much I'll ever GM RM again, having found a game better suited for my purposes.

This is a surprisingly hybridist set of observations... "better suited" implies "less unsuited" which in turn implies a matter of degree. The implication is that there is an element such that, that element can be suited in some degree - better or worse - to "narrativist" play.

 

[FrogReaver]

I believe this specifically describes fiction-first, which is an important dynamic available and of benefit to many TTRPGS.

I sometimes think it would be better known as fiction-first-and-following because one starts from the fiction, passes through system, which propels further fiction. An ongoing compelling and constraining in pursuit of what follows.

The way you say it here sounds like it’s just a property of being a ttrpg. Like if you can say anything you want about the fiction (mechanic = say what you want) and then the next player can do the same it sounds more like a story game than an rpg IMO.

In some sense it seems rpg play arises due to the constraints placed on the players and GM.

 

[pemerton]

Thoughts on this?

In GNS,
Simulationist (S) is a preference for mechanics (game elements) to drive a reality simulation within the game.

Narrativist (N) is a preference for mechanics (game elements) to drive a narrative simulation within the game.

Gamist (G) is a preference for mechanics (game elements) that exist foremost for the game. For example, encounter guidelines where the PCs dont normally face encounters with too strong or too weak opponents.

To me it’s the synthesis of all these things together in a game that makes it work. All games seem to have pieces of each of these. The best mechanics IMO are ones that can drive simulation, narrative and the game itself simultaneously - even if not doing any of these perfectly.

I guess I don't know what this is meant to do. Like, is it supposed to be a comprehensive taxonomy? A guide for designers? Something else?

GNS as set out be Edwards is an attempt to identify aesthetic goals of RPGing. It starts from a premise - that RPGing is a form in which (i) participants control characters who find themselves in situations that provoke them to action, and (ii) the action is ultimately in the imagination of the participants. It then asks, Why would human beings expend time, creative energy, and emotion, doing this thing?

And then three candidate answers are offered:

They might do it because it creates something comparable to literature or film, but taking advantage of this distinctive medium (ie both (i) and (ii)) - that is *narrativism (= "story now"). (Is there some literature and film that don't really "count" here - eg Hardy Boys books, perhaps the worst of James Bond films? Probably. On the other hand, I don't think Edwards is going to assert that narrativist Champions is, in thematic and creative terms, on a par with War and Peace or Citizen Kane.)

They might do it because they want to compete and see how well they can do, just as happens in a lot of other game play - that is *gamism (= "step on up"). The parameters of this competition - between whom in real life and between whom in the fiction - can of course be very varied (eg party play D&D typically has little competition among the PCs, often has competition against the GM's adversity - eg "beat the dungeon" - and may but need not have competition among the players, eg as to who is cleverest in combat or spell load-out or who gets the most XP or the best magic items).

There might be no further reason for doing this imagining than *for its own sake, as a way of "exploring" an imaginary world, or as a way of "experiencing" an author's story (eg this is how DL works, or Dead Gods, or many CoC modules) - this is simulationism (= "the right to dream").​

From the point of view of RPG design, if we know which aesthetic goal we would like our game to best support, we can then look at what sorts of mechanics will suit that goal. Eg Vincent Baker and Luke Crane did this, respectively, in designing Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel. They came up with quite different mechanics for supporting the first - "narrativist" - goal above. This shows what Edwards already worked out two decades ago, that there is no particular correlation between aesthetic goals and particular mechanical solutions, although there may be some mechanics that better fit one or other goal.

The same is true for system more generally: AW and BW use different procedures of play in pursuit of the "story now" aesthetic experience; Rolemaster and railroady-y CoC modules use different procedures of play in pursuit of the "right to dream" aesthetic; Moldvay Basic D&D and can-you-solve-the-mystery? CoC scenarios use different procedures of play in pursuit of the "step on up" aesthetic.

The purpose of GNS, as articulated by Edwards, is not to pigeon-hole mechanics, or techniques, or procedures of play like GM prep or map-and-key framing or whatever. It is to try and speak clearly about aesthetic goals of RPGing, and then let us think about how to support those goals using the resources the medium has at its disposal (which in his view are system, setting, situation, character and colour). But no one thinks that, just because someone is really aspiring to narrativist RPGing, that means they will love Edwards's narrativist Champions even if they dislike high search-and-handling in resolution and are really not into Supers.

No one thinks that someone who likes grounded, realistic fiction is going to get into Wuthering Heights. But liking grounded, realistic fiction doesn't make someone per se "simulationist" - there is grounded literature (eg much of Graham Greene; some of Dickens) as well as wild fantasy (eg much of REH or JRRT or Marvel Comics), and a "narrativist" might look for a RPG experience that is closer to the former than the latter. (See eg Baker's imaginary "Life o' Crime RPG" that I quoted upthread.)

Similarly, enjoying "story" doesn't make someone "narrativist" - if you want the story to be provided via pre-authorship rather than arising out of the distinctive elements of the RPG medium, say by playing through a module, then your preference is "simulationist". And there is in my view quite a bit of evidence that many RPGers do want this.

 

[pemerton]

This is a surprisingly hybridist set of observations... "better suited" implies "less unsuited" which in turn implies a matter of degree. The implication is that there is an element such that, that element can be suited in some degree - better or worse - to "narrativist" play.

I don't know what "hybridism" is.

However, the point that different imagined situations, different mechanics, etc may be better or worse suited to narrativist play isn't a new one, though. Not from me: I've been making it for 10 or 15 years on these boards.

And I didn't invent the point. Ron Edwards made it over 20 years ago.

I mean, look at Vincent Baker's remarks about what narrativism needs: fit characters with apt opposition/antagonism generating rising conflict across a moral line, with the players' decisions establishing the conflict and the meaning of its resolution. It follows trivially from this that some situations are better suited than others: there's a reason his imagined RPG is "Life o' Crime" and not "Life o' Muffin Baking". That's not to say that we can know, a priori, that it is impossible to create rising conflict across a moral line in the context of muffin baking. But I don't think it's going to be easy!

There's a reason that the debate over armour repair was one scene in my Burning Wheel play, but not the whole of the game.

 

[pemerton]

Recollecting that for TTRPG we can't exclude the players.

Presumably on your account, then, JRRT and I are both "part of" The Lord of the Rings - he as author, me as (one of many) reader(s).

 

[clearstream]

The way you say it here sounds like it’s just a property of being a ttrpg. Like if you can say anything you want about the fiction (mechanic = say what you want) and then the next player can do the same it sounds more like a story game than an rpg IMO.

In some sense it seems rpg play arises due to the constraints placed on the players and GM.

Well, it comes out of Baker's arrows and clouds which were I believe descriptive, meaning they observe and describe TTRPG. Which through diagramming allowed it to be explored and addressed.

Thus I think fiction-first recognises, intentionally structures, and emphasises a common dynamic. Of course, even a common dynamic can start to have a meaningfully different impact on play once it is recognised and structured.