quasi-narrativist mechanic for quicker/better simulationism

[simon]

I've only ever posted a couple of times and so I'm not sure if this is the right place. Anyway, I've become bogged down/completely at a loss with what I consider to be a simple quasi-narrative mechanic for what is a basically sim game and which is designed to throw out tables, charts and lenthy periods of dice rolling. Help, comments, critcism, flashes of genious insight (especially the latter!) will be warmly received. Thanks in advance.

Basically, my problem is this: Each character has three attributes (Mind, Body, Soul) with a value of 1-6 in each. Each attribute is further defined by a quality and a quirk. A quality is something that is usually considered advantageous, a quirk something unfortunate. Thus, Mind could have the quality quick learner and the quirk innumerate. Body could be fast as lighning and poor sighted. Soul could be described as divinely in tune and easily corrupted. Whatever. The setting, by the way, is a lossely Victorian world (UK mainly) where ghosts, vampires, etc. really do exist and is in this respect a cthulhuish type of horror game. I'm also working with a Society stat which measures your acceptability and integratdeness into what is a very stuffy culture and which changes within the game similar to but much broader than 'insanity' in Cthulhu or terrible insight in Cthonian.

In conflict situations, the score of these attributes gives the player that number of dice. In conflcits which are physical (jumping a chasm, combat, etc.) body is used. In mental conflicts (debates, learning a new language, etc.) Mind is used. Soul is used when dealing with opponents who are supernatural and in situations which invlove the supernatural (astrally projecting oneself, banishing a ghost, etc.).

The number of dice used is the score + 1 if the quality/quirk is clearly advantageous, -1 if the quality/quirk is clearly a hindrance. Showing how a quality or a quirk which is not clearly advantageous is actually so gives +2 dice - (I'm so plug ugly, the guy is shocked with disgust; I'm so tone deaf the song of the magical weird thingy-ma-jig just doesn't affect me the same).

That number of dice are then rolled and compared to the resisting target. Smashing open a locked door, for example, with Body 5 quality very strong gives 6 dice to use. The door itself has Body 7, Mind 0, Soul 0. The player rolls his 6 dice. The GM rolls 7 for the door. The results are then compared. The type of dice used is not relevant so long as the same dice is used by the target and the protagonist.

As an example, the player rolls 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6. The GM rolls 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5.

Highest pairs are compared. Ties are ignored. Each win is considered a victory. When the number of dice rolled by both player and GM are disparate, the extra dice is always counted as a victory. Thus, in our example, the door has three victories and the player has one. This is where I've got stuck. I want a victory to translate into the player and/or the GM narrating an effect. This could be: players effect = door smashes open. Door's effects: the character damages his shoulder, the noise is heard a mile off and the player falls flat on his face giving mild concussion.

Problem is, what restrictions should there be here? In combat especially, everyone will want his or her victory to be "I killed the bugger!" Maybe I could tag the number of victories needed to narrate a closure such as this. And what about the actual winner in the contest. The door had three victories, the player only one. But the door still gave way. It also takes quite a bit of time to do the comparing (although you do get exponentially quicker with practice).

Can anyone see anything worth salvaging or do I start afresh?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Simon,

Well, the first thing you can do is stop worrying about Narrativism this or that. You're dealing with narration, not Narrativism.

The second thing to parse out is effect from narration. Think of it this way - the GM is traditionally seen as the fellow who, by default, uses good judgment and runs with what the Fortune (or whatever) system has provided while narrating. Why not just go ahead with the assumption that the players can just as easily be trusted with that same judgment?

The key then is to have the system provide enough "this happens" meat for a person to work with, without letting them make up whatever-they-want-to-happen, and similarly giving them the right to Color it or juice it up a little as they see fit.

Best,
Ron

[simon]

Thanks Ron.

While I appreciate and understand your point about narration vs. narrativism I was simply using it as an adjective for a mechanic in a RPG. The thing is we don't want to go the whole narrative hog. My players and I actually enjoy exploring the world, simulating what it would be realistically like to be a certain character in a certain world. For us internal consistency and realism are as important as the story itself; indeed, they are the foundations on which the story is built.

Likewise, I fully appreciate your point about effect vs. narration. But again, our bias is towards (a species of) simulationist gaming. The one thing we have disliked about sim games generally is the  over-dependence they have on charts, tables, cross-referencing, pre-scripted effects and such things as magic points, hit points, damages location systems, etc. What I was trying to do with the quasi-narrative mechanic was enable better simulationist play. Hence quasi-narrative and not real narrative. Letting the players (GM included) interpret the dice rolls in a way they want will, I believe, certainly enable this. But then this leads to your last point: how to allow such freedom while retaining reasonable parameters of internal consistency. Pegging certain number of "victories" to certain broadly possible outcomes might be the way. I'm just at a loss as to how I can do it.

Maybe something like this:

Before starting an action players must state their intended outcome. To fully realise this they need at least 5 more victories than the target. Partial realisation could be gained with at least 3 victories and each individual victory below 3 counts as a step towards realisation of the outcome. Room needs to be made for allowing intended outcomes to be changed, though. And then things like iniative and round order will take on a greater significance.

Ah well...

Thanks again.

[M. J. Young]

Simon, I think you've misunderstood what Ron is saying, unless I am in turn misunderstanding

The thing is we don't want to go the whole narrative hog....For us internal consistency and realism are as important as the story itself; indeed, they are the foundations on which the story is built....What I was trying to do with the quasi-narrative mechanic was enable better simulationist play. Hence quasi-narrative and not real narrative.

It sounds to me like you're still confusing narrativist with narration; but me repeating that isn't going to help, so let me attempt to clarify it.

What you are talking about is nothing more or less than who gets to narrate the outcome of the resolution. The dice are rolled, we see from the roll who won (and to what degree). Then someone has to say what happens. In earlier games, that someone was the referee. That means that the referee is the player acting as director, since he gets to determine all the outcomes and give them form (as opposed to merely controling what a particular character is doing). In many more recent games, this power is shared--through one means or another, one of the other players at the table gets to say what happened. In your doors example, if the player won you'd like the player to be able to say, "The door gives slightly as the frame cracks, and I hit it again bursting it open" or "The door's hinges let go, and it falls to the floor in front of us"--but you want to keep the descriptions reasonable and in some sense "realistic".

Your confusion may come in because most games which give this power to players are narrativist in design, and you want to use the same tool in a simulationist setting. You're confusing the tool with the use, as those who think that narrativist games must be run strictly by drama mechanics, or that simulation must use karma more than fortune. You are not at all talking about narrativist priorities--no one in your group wants to develop a game primarily for the exploration of moral, ethical, or personal themes or issues. You're only talking about a mechanic that allows players the ability to narrate, to describe the outcome, within the parameters of a simulationist system.

If we for the moment discard the issue of letting the players narrate, it seems to me that the essence of your problem lies in defining the nature of the outcome at all. That is, in simulationist games, there are generally two ways to determine such outcomes:
[list=1][*]Provide extensive charts and tables covering everything that might happen and die rolls or other methods of determining which of those things does happen. I think Rolemaster does this, primarily.
[*]Provide some guidelines on the degree of outcome and allow the referee to define the actual form thereof. Multiverser's relative success and relative failure mechanics would fall in this category.[/list:o]
If you stop and think about it for a moment, nearly all simulationist games mix the two methods to some degree. That is, those that provide extensive charts usually also recognize that there will be situations in which the referee is going to have to fill in the gaps on his own, and those that work from guidelines usually have a few examples of how this would apply in practice that do, or at least can, serve as tables. Thus as long as you've been playing, you've had situations in which the referee has had to look at the roll, look at the situation, and interpolate an appropriate result.

Now what you want to do is give that ability to the other players, that they, too, may make those decisions--and you want to dump the charts completely, so you're never looking up an outcome (time consuming). Your concern is that the players might take advantage of the power to do things that don't mesh with the simulationist goals--things that snap our disbelief suspenders, perhaps, or press a minor victory into a major one. The response to these concerns is simple: why do you trust your referee to do it right, but not your players? What special training or qualifications has the referee that makes him better able to interpolate results consistent with the setting than anyone else in the room?

It might be that there are such concerns in some games or settings, in which the referee knows a great deal more about the world than anyone else does and might have to overrule certain actions as not in accord with facts the players don't know. This could be because the world has mysterious aspects which make it different from our reality, or it could be merely that the volume of information about the world is too great for everyone at the table to have learned it. In most cases, though, the players will have as much information as the referee about the things that matter, and can as easily interpolate results as he is.

At any rate, if you want to give narrative powers to the players, you have to believe that about them.

And again, this has nothing to do with moving to narrativist play. You can use such narration control in gamist or simulationist games as easily as in narrativist ones, if you do it right.

I hope this is helpful.

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

I agree with Ron and MJ that you're confusing the terminology. But I think I know what you want, and I have something that can help, I think.

Before starting an action players must state their intended outcome. To fully realise this they need at least 5 more victories than the target. Partial realisation could be gained with at least 3 victories and each individual victory below 3 counts as a step towards realisation of the outcome.

OK. You got me to here. I'm with you to this point.

Room needs to be made for allowing intended outcomes to be changed, though.

Why? Intraround? Can't you just say that if a player changes his characters intent that he has to start all over needing 5 successes or the three partials (or whatever)? I'm not understanding the problem. Seems simple enough. If you quit and start a new task, you have to start over.

And then things like iniative and round order will take on a greater significance.

Skip em. All contests of skill. See Zenobia for an example of exactly what you're talking about, IMO.

Mike

[simon]

Thanks MJ & Mike.

MJ, I completely agree with you and don't really see where we differ (in any great degree). Of course I "trust" (if that is the word) players to narrate sensibly. My concern wasn't with them per se, more with how the mechanic facilitates narration. To be honest I don't really like the typologising of games into either G or N or S. It's never been so rigid in my experience. I said "narrativist" simply to give attention not to the species of game it is but to the type of mechanic being used. That said, however, I see your point about my confusing tool with use - although it must be said that there are connections between the two. Thanks for your comments.

Mike, hello again. This mechanic and setting is how the SF game we talked about some time ago has evolved. Strange how things turn out. Of course, you are absolutely right about changing intent. So simple, really. In hindsight. Actaully, I can't see the problem which I (thought) I saw before. So thanks. I'm going to read through Zenobia for ideas about initiative as skill contests etc.

Thanks to you both again,

Simon.