The Forge Archives

Mike,

Fair enough, but all my points still apply.

Best,
Ron

Hey Joe,

Our group seems scared at the idea of developing a setting from whole cloth, so Paul Czege suggested that our group could run a Narrativist game with a setting from an already-published RPG.

I think I remember suggesting a setting from an "indie RPG"...but the important thing wasn't actually the indie-ness of the game. I used the setting from Sun & Storm when I ran The Pool primarily because I liked it, but also partly because it was self-contained. The game is two thin books and that's it. I said "indie" because trend-wise the settings of non-indie games are more, I think, than what you need. I think all you need to soothe the trepidations of your group is the core of a setting, and not something so "revealed across multiple supplements" as Fading Suns. Even Blue Planet is probably too much setting. You need something like Shattered Dreams, or Epiphany, or Paul Elliott's MARS, or Space 1889 maybe, just enough setting to get things started for the group, but not so much that they feel any implied pressure to setting accuracy. You need just enough of a setting so the players are lulled into "created through play" on top of it. And actually, Exalted might not be so bad, just because White Wolf hasn't yet published so much on it.

Paul

Quote from: Paul Czege

I think I remember suggesting a setting from an "indie RPG"...but the important thing wasn't actually the indie-ness of the game. I used the setting from Sun & Storm when I ran The Pool primarily because I liked it, but also partly because it was self-contained. The game is two thin books and that's it. I said "indie" because trend-wise the settings of non-indie games are more, I think, than what you need.

Oh, I see...

Well, we've managed to strike a happy medium. We're taking some simple setting ideas from FS and mixing it up with a few comics we're all familiar with, like Pat Mills' http://www.2000adonline.com/index.php3?zone=thrill&page=profiles&choice=nemesis">'Nemesis' run in 2000AD. Nemesis is set in a dark gothic future. People use black holes to travel the universe, but write with quills and have candles. That sort of thing. So we will be taking a thin sliver from a published game, and then pad it out as needed.

So we'll take FS as a jumping off point, ignore most of the rules, and probably use Sorceror to handle most of the system stuff.

And I'm taking Ron's advice and taking a few days off gaming. ;)

Joe.

One small, but final update, unfortunately.

Though I've brought up Narrativist techniques a great deal with my group, and though we discussed the emphasis on story and the worth of stances other than Actor, I wasn't sure my group understood what it was I wanted to tackle. We're so used to fumbling our way towards a story, while at the same time aiming to be deep in-character that this new approach is a real kick in the arse.

I took a few quotes from the Forge, sent a mail to my group's mailing list, and got a response back quickly. It looks one of my players still doesn't 'get' Narrativism, and didn't realise it was going to be so different from our usual style, so he dropped out. He can't see that RPGs can really work if they don't push people to be in character all the time. For him, that's his goal.

That makes two players who have dropped out, and as only one out of the remaining three is a strong Narrativist, that leaves the game a bit groundless. I can't see these three players working together well, and my enthusiasm is greatly deflated.

Thanks for your input, everyone. I'll update in the future in the unlikely event I run something.

Best,

Joe.

Joe,

Just a thought - I've discovered with my group that sometimes you can "over talk" this stuff.  Do something like Ron did in his "Questing Beast" game - pre-create (mostly) characters for folks and play a one-shot.  Hell, go ahead and USE Ron's TQB setup - I doubt he'd mind.  If you've got players that won't even give one (slightly long) evening of "something maybe a little different" a try . . . then yeah, you might as well give up.  But give 'em something concrete to react to, and they may be more willing.

Like I said, just a thought  . . .

Gordon

Joe,

i'm totaly with Gordon on this one.

Think about your players ; it's abig step for someone who never had the time to analyse this mode of gaming. And then, it's not everybody bread and butter to analyse how you play.

And you're asking them to engage in a 6 month game !!!

In my groups, I am the one who think the most about "hwo could we play differantly?" or "Is there some others way to facilitate this kind of play"?, ...

The first time was a hard and big deception, all because I was talking about analysing play and theorizing stuff, and none of the players neither enjoyed that kind of thing or seemed to understand what I was talking about.

So the best solution (for my group, and maybe for yours) might be to introduce them to narrativism by playing that way. Call it just a test of some thing differant. So keep it short. It should be easier for the reluctant player to accept to chance their habitude "just for tonight", and then they might realise that it was not that weird or bad...

Don't let it go just because thing seem hard at first (beside, playing with just two players can be a lot of fun,trust me on this !!)

I hope you'll make it.

Fabrice

Oh man. I've just shifted cities a couple of weeks ago, and I was thinking about a friend of mine in the old city. Once when we were drunk we wrote poetry, writing alternate lines,  on the computer. Then we made a little comic in MS paint, taking turns to scrawl a panel; it was about a guy named Stan, who liked to drill people's heads for no apparent reason. The last panel was him looking into a sunset; "I'm so fucking lonely". This friend of mine once expressed interest in role-playing, but we never got round to it because of exams and so on. This was all before I understood narrativism and so on.

Now I realize what a perfect narrativist player he would be! He had no preconceptions about what role-playing is, (he had heard of DnD, but had no idea about what you actually 'did' in it, at all!), he liked exploring emotional issues, he was good at ad-libing, and he and I were good at creating stuff together; it would have been heaven! Plus, check this out: I wrote the titles of each of the poems, and I made the first panel in the comic; I also did all the 'art'. Now, is that scene framing and general GM-work or what? But he provided the flesh, the solid emotional content, which I never could. Is that narrativist player work or what?

God, now I have no group here at all, and I am SO frustrated at what I lost.

Anyway, my point is: appreciate what you have. All of you. Take a moment to appreciate that you have people to game with at all, even if they aren't perfect. And never hesitate to try something new with someone new; there may be huge role-playing potential in people you know, that you can't see because they're right in front of you.

And, um, don't take drugs. Mmkay.

Ok, I'm the one who dropped out. In my defense almost every mail Joe sent said that if this wasnt the game for you then drop out. Yesterday he said "If you *do* want a game that focuses on being in character, then it isn't for me, and I can't run it." Now I was willing to try story driven, but not to completely throw out what I enjoy. Sure I'd try something new, and yeah as little nicky said analysing gaming is absolutely not my cup of tea, I see it as a fun leech. But Joe specifically said that what I enjoy would not be involved, so I politely declined.

Gordon (um, the one from Scotland, not the Landis Gordon)--

Good for you. Seriously. A lot of players would have taken Joe's statement as some sort of affront to them. "What do you mean you won't run the game I want to play? That's what the GM does! You're here to serve us!" I think the mature route is to simply realize that everyone is not one the same page, as far as what they want to do & what they want to get out of it. Politely declining, before things can get ugly, is a good, solid way to go.

Okay, I've come to this thread late, and like Ron says, everyone (apart from those involved) is sort of looking at it from afar - but I can't but think this disruption could have been avoided.

I certainly think discussing some of this stuff ahead of time too much can be way too problematic. The reason being: very often people often don't know if this is an acceptable form of play, or how different it will be (for your group) until they actually do it. Each persons narrativism is different in tone and degree - sending them blurb on the more 'extreme ends' of the narrativism spectrum was probably not a good idea.

Start with a narrative push from the GM' perspective.

Your players seem to favour 'getting into character' above all else - I think this is actually a good place to start. I also believe you could have warned them you might be trying something slightly different, and then kicked into gear from your side of the fence.

Just design a story for the new characters based on situations (not plots), relationships and tie that into the characters the players like getting into so well. It would not be long before those relationships, and the drive to solve the situations (player authorship - or at least them acting as protagonists) would have given you basic narrativism (as I understand it anyway)?

If this worked and the group liked, just keep pushing around the edges. If it was not everyone's bag, then at least you found out through practice rather than loosing people to a theory that they might have liked in practice (to one degree or another).

Quote from: Ian O'Rourke
I certainly think discussing some of this stuff ahead of time too much can be way too problematic. The reason being: very often people often don't know if this is an acceptable form of play, or how different it will be (for your group) until they actually do it. Each persons narrativism is different in tone and degree - sending them blurb on the more 'extreme ends' of the narrativism spectrum was probably not a good idea.

This is exactly it. I've now gone over the huge GNS essay again and come to the conclusion that I didnt misunderstand it at all. Narrativism doesn't mean that the character has to act in ways which break the suspension of disbelief, so all the character's actions can be believable and IC. IMO that's what makes a convincing story. I wanted the characters to build the story and vice versa. What I didn't see was the more extreme end. Once I saw that was where the game was set, I left.

Gordon

Quote from: Gordon

This is exactly it. I've now gone over the huge GNS essay again and come to the conclusion that I didnt misunderstand it at all. Narrativism doesn't mean that the character has to act in ways which break the suspension of disbelief, so all the character's actions can be believable and IC. IMO that's what makes a convincing story. I wanted the characters to build the story and vice versa. What I didn't see was the more extreme end. Once I saw that was where the game was set, I left.

I think you could have found a happy middle-ground as well - as your wish to stay 'in character' all the time during play is actually compatible with narrativism, just not necessarily the extreme end. I think value can be found in going some way, extreme narrativism is not for everyone.

As an example, you don't like Out of Character discussion during play, which is the case for a lot of people - once the game starts they like to remain 'in the zone'. I've found that a lot of people prefer Out of Character discussion with the GM outside of play, this is then a compromise that works for both parties. You can discuss the direction you would like a character relationship to go in the future, and leave it unknown (and to the GM) as to how it is actually done.

Quote from: Ian O'Rourke
I think you could have found a happy middle-ground as well - as your wish to stay 'in character' all the time during play is actually compatible with narrativism, just not necessarily the extreme end. I think value can be found in going some way, extreme narrativism is not for everyone.

It's not that,
I'm one of the players Joe described as intuitively narrativist. AFAIK I use different stances and introduce complications in the character's life to further the story. What I didn't  like was that the examples we discussed in our pre-game meetings suggested that character motivation wasn't to be a factor at all. We were to ignore what we thought the character in the story would do in response to events and tailor it to the overall story we worked out in advance.  I wanted the character motivations to work with the story and the story to work with the character motivations.

Gordon

Quote from: Gordon
It's not that,
I'm one of the players Joe described as intuitively narrativist. AFAIK I use different stances and introduce complications in the character's life to further the story. What I didn't  like was that the examples we discussed in our pre-game meetings suggested that character motivation wasn't to be a factor at all. We were to ignore what we thought the character in the story would do in response to events and tailor it to the overall story we worked out in advance.  I wanted the character motivations to work with the story and the story to work with the character motivations.

Gordon

I think what we have here is a failure to communicate.  Perhaps brought on by trying discuss roleplaying styles in depth in advance without using a Forge-esque lexicon that is only partially understood.

For the record (and I'm sure most here would agree) I would NEVER attempt to lead people towards identifying GNS priorities by attempting to discuss GNS with them.  Speaking from experience you really have to have the "light bulb epiphany" FIRST, then all the jargon starts to make sense.

Nothing you've said above, Gordon, conflicts with Narrativist goals in anyway.  Narrative goals are to create a good story.  A good story requires good characters.  Believable characters behaving in believable ways are in no way contradictory to this.

I obviously was not privy to your emails but what you've described (about subordinating player desires to some predesigned story direction) sounds alot more like Dramatism than Narrativism.  Which just goes to show why leading with vocabulary isn't a very good idea.

Quote from: Gordon
It's not that,
I'm one of the players Joe described as intuitively narrativist. AFAIK I use different stances and introduce complications in the character's life to further the story. What I didn't  like was that the examples we discussed in our pre-game meetings suggested that character motivation wasn't to be a factor at all. We were to ignore what we thought the character in the story would do in response to events and tailor it to the overall story we worked out in advance.  I wanted the character motivations to work with the story and the story to work with the character motivations.

Well, then the problem is that the case has been overstated. In Narrativist play you do not throw out all character motivation. The motivations and story do work together. The only question is where you are making your decisions from. If your decisions on the characters motivations and the exercise of those motivations are base on "What is good for the story" then you are the perfect narrativist (and this would seem to be the case from all description). Only if you were to base such decisions on "What would my character do if he existed in Real Life" or "existed in Middle Earth" or whatever, would you be a Simulationist player.

Take an example. You have a character who is a Knight in a fantasy realm. He must decide whether or not to go off to fight a dragon to rescue a damsel in distress. The knoght is very honorable, and is motivated to save her. Do you have the knight:

a) carefully assemble an army so that you have the best chance against the dragon.

or

b) rush off alone (or possibly with a companion or two) to rescue the fair maiden.

The first is the reasonable response, and what people would probably do if dragons really existed. But it's not a good story. The latter is much more dramatic. That's the difference between Sim and Nar play.

Note, that to create a better semblance of story, a GM playing with Sim players will probably find a way to force the characters to go off and fight the dragon alone (the villagers are too scared to help). The GM playing with Narrativist players does not have to force anything as the Narrativist player will make the decision that is best for the story anyway. The Narrativist player does so by (possibly very subtly) employing Author mode. He looks not just at the characters motivation, and what the character would "really" do, but also at what would be good for the story.

Any attempt to create a good story that completely ignored the motivations of the characters would be doomed to failure.

Mike