Why I can't say "I had fun playing Trollbabe"

[Michael S. Miller]

On Saturday at GenCon, Ron ran Trollbabe for Gordon & me. Thinking about it robbed me of precious sleep later that night, and occupied brainspace during the long drive back to Pennsylvania on Monday. My first reaction to playing the game was "It's like a new pair of shoes, it pinches." Given that the game reads so well, and the numerous reports in Actual Play of enjoyable sessions, I wondered why I didn't have fun playing Trollbabe. I acknowledge that this was a hasty, short demo, but I'm not certain how long term play would affect many of these issues. Although analysis isn't my strong suit, here's my first thoughts on the subject.

1) I didn't (and still don't) know where to put my emotional investment in the events of play.

When I play Sorcerer--or even in the semi-Narr Buffy game I'm currently in--I put my heart with my character and in that which swirls around my charactr. I use a lot of Author stance decision-making to set up angst, turmoil, motifs, dialogue that has ironic double-meanings, and the like. I then get the aesthetic pay-off of "living" the drama (investment in character [Paul Czege's type1 Narr interests?]) and of contributing to a well-crafted tale (investment in situation and color[Paul's type2?]). When I play Universalis, I put my heart in making my cool ideas happen (investment in situation and setting) and don't care too much about the characters. Trollbabe seems to fall between these two extremes.

In Trollbabe, the circumstances and the Stakes are expressly a GM concern, so as a player my pay-off from a well-crafted tale is minimal, especially in light of the narration rules. Also the setup of Trollbabe--a hero with no past wanders from place to place, becoming the crux of other people's problems--lessens, for me at least, the emotional payoff from the events that swirl around my character. Since my character is not tightly tied to these events, it's tough for me to care. (I can see where long-term play could certainly alleviate much of this, however.) Maybe I'm just not skilled as switching Stance in mid-sentence.

2) The narration mechanics really rubbed me the wrong way. In some ways, it seemed as if the only way to contribute to shaping the story was to fail. As a player, I state my goal for any conflict at the beginning, and if I succeed, my reward is ... the privilege of sitting back and having the GM tell me how my character has succeeded. Even now, days later, I feel a visceral reaction in my gut as I type this. I want to shout: "In an RPG, I wanna do stuff! Not listen to other people do stuff! Especially when it's my turn and my character!" This deflated the idea that the Trollbabe's actions decide the outcome of the stakes. I found myself not caring, because even if my rolls succeeded, Ron would tell me how.

Perhaps another way to go would be to state your goal in a conflict as the opposite of what you actually want to happen, and choose your weakest score for the conflict, hoping to fail, and then ignore the reroll mechanics, simply being discommoded over and over--but narrating the failure. But this feels like cheating to me. Besides, the events of play would look less like Trollbabe-style fantasy and more like a Pink Panther movie with the Trollbabes bumbling from scene to scene, settling things only accidentally.

In post-game chat, Ron explained that the "old-school" style of narration was sort of a happy babble of everyone throwing ideas around and the group informally reaching consensus about what had happened in the game world. Then, the "GM narrates everything" school had come along and produced dysfunctional, often de-protagonizing play. He said (correct me if I'm wrong--it was late) that narration mechanics served to re-teach groups that everyone can have a voice--with the goal being that after using games like Trollbabe as a set of training wheels, the groups can reclaim the grand informality of the "old-school."

For myself, the only times I've encountered the "GM narrates everything" syndrome has been at a few conventions, which I just chalked up to poor GMing skills. Thus the narration mechanics may serve to fix a problem I simply never encountered. They seem like a step backwards. I know that several times Gordon's Trollbabe was doing stuff that I had suggestions for, but I felt I had to keep my mouth shut. Since the game says "You can speak here and here" it seems to imply that you ought not speak at other points. This may just be overinterpretation on my part.

Those are the major points. I'd still like to investigate the "player controls a Relationship's actions, but the GM plays them" aspect of the game; and I'm not certain that for certain rolls (in one's weakest Score) re-rolls might be more of an invitation to further failure than some faint hope of success. I'd be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on these aspects of the game.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Interesting stuff, Michael, and you helped focus some of my thoughts about that play session.

To get the general stuff out of the way, I *did* have fun in the demo.  I think I knew it was going to basically work for me the moment the human with troll-horns showed  up.  From reading actual play stuff here and checking out Ron's mini-comics, I was inclined to put the emotional/thematic center of play on the whole "keep the peace between humans and trolls" aspect, and that human-with-horns hooked me quite nicely.  Combine that with getting a decent feel for my Trollbabe - a willful adventuress who'd rather be up checking out Witten's Holm but was unwilling to entirely ignore the disaster in the making we'd stumbled into - and I had more than enough to sink my teeth into.

I did have some issues with knowing how to decide things like when to re-roll, when to change the pace, and etc. - it wasn't obvious to me what the "right" decisions here were, so I mostly made a seemingly-random choice.  And I think I'll need more time with the player decides/GM narrates stuff, but it's similar to something I've been experimenting with in my own design, so it didn't throw me.

I also have spent a fair amount of time thinking about this little demo (though I was distracted on the trip back by something Jared and John Wick said about 'Olympus vs. Asgard', but that's a different story).  My . . . obsessing is about all the things that I didn't think of at the time that might have been cool ways to change/re-direct the story.  In my climatic scene, it seemed like there were only two choices - try and stop Thorgrim(?), or let him kill his brother.  In the days since, I keep coming up with other options, many of which I like better than what actually happened.  Even just in terms of "what I tried to do" - obviously, there's no guarantee I'd have gotten what I wanted anyway.

My thought is that in Nar play - and maybe especially in Trollbabe where you only communicate what you ATTEMPT to the GM and the details of narration are then transferred - switching away from a scene to give the player time to think about what to do next is VITAL.  There being only the two of us in this session, and you having already "completed" a part of your story, there was no such opportunity in our game.  Now, late at night, last night of the con, I may never have come up with anything else, but - it's an interesting principle, that time to "weigh" the thematic possibilities is VERY important in Nar play.

Gordon

[rafial]

Also the setup of Trollbabe--a hero with no past wanders from place to place, becoming the crux of other people's problems--lessens, for me at least, the emotional payoff from the events that swirl around my character.

Just a counterpoint from my own play and GMing experience.  Nearly every Trollbabe I've seen arrives in game with the player having some pretty strong ideas about where she came from, and what her goals are.  And that's where the player's ability to insert elements via narration, use of rerolls, and relationships allow the player to fish their own connections out of whatever stew the GM presents.

The narration mechanics really rubbed me the wrong way. In some ways, it seemed as if the only way to contribute to shaping the story was to fail. As a player, I state my goal for any conflict at the beginning, and if I succeed, my reward is ... the privilege of sitting back and having the GM tell me how my character has succeeded.

This definitely gives most experienced roleplayers pause.  And yet, it turns out there is lots you can do.  Here is where both rerolls and pace play a big part.  Consider taking a scene action by action.  You can accept up to two failed series, and still succeed at the end, giving you lots of chance to narrate.  Also, within a single series, justifying your rerolls gives you some chances for "mini-narrations" within your overall success.  Finally, call for conflict in situations where your really don't care about the outcome.  Example: in one game I ran, the Trollbabe attempted to convince the commander of a city guard to help her deal with some pirates.  The player didn't actually want the guard to help, he just wanted to narrate and establish some facts about the town and the guard.  Plus it made a cool scene of the Trollbabe insulting the commander and stalking out of his office in a huff.

Since the game says "You can speak here and here" it seems to imply that you ought not speak at other points. This may just be overinterpretation on my part.

Quite so.  The key element, as pointed out in other threads is that the power of narration simply gives the holder final say on what happens, but it is essential for everybody else at the table to feel free to chime in with ideas.  In fact, one way to get more satisfaction out of success is to provide the GM with suggestions on *how* you'd like succeed.  Many times, the GM will be perfectly happy to oblige (depending on the GMs goals for the scene).  In our games, if the "narrator" doesn't immediate start talking everbody else chimes in with suggestions, and then after a while the narrator says, "okay, here's what actually happens".

I'm not certain that for certain rolls (in one's weakest Score) re-rolls might be more of an invitation to further failure than some faint hope of success. I'd be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on these aspects of the game.

Rerolls only increase your chance of success.  You only get to reroll when you were going to fail anyway.  Rerolls *do* increase the consquences of failure.  So it does force you to think carefully about when you are willing to commit extra effort.

Pace on the other hand, definitely affects success.  For a strong score, a slower pace (more rolls) boosts your chance of overall success, and for a weak score, it lowers it.  This is a tool that can be used to help insure success, or set up dramatic failures.  Similarly fast paces can used keep your chances as good as possible when you really DO want to succeed against a weak score, or when you simply aren't as attached to the outcome.  Pace is both a dramatic *and* gamist tool.

Ultimately, the Trollbabe tradeoff is this.  Traditional RPGs put you in charge of your character and only your character, and the GM has the full say about the world.  Thus, the ability to describe what "my guy" does it paramount for the player to feel effective.  But in Trollbabe, the player gets some of that world building credibility, so "my girl" becomes less critical to enjoyment.  Of course if you are not into the authoring side of things, and simply want to explore character, then Trollbabe may not be your game of choice.

[Alan]

I played in Rafial's Trollbabe game.  Had great fun.  

I just wanted to add a few things about narration:

1) You can narrate your before-roll action description as if you were narrating success.  As long as you leave room for the GM to describe _how_ your success affects his NPCs, he won't have to change anything.

You might think describing success sets you up for disappointment when you roll a failure, but because _you_ narrate failures, you retain authorship and it does not disappoint.

2) Trollbabe doesn't forbid players from narrating any time they like.  Several times during play I've used this and also seen others use it.  Sometimes such suggestions are just accepted by the group.  Sometimes the GM or others challenge and negotiate changes.  Sometimes, the GM just declares a Conflict.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mike and everyone,

Due to constraints of the demo time and my own sore throat, this is the piece of the rules that I didn't emphasize during the session. It's also a piece that I think people miss because of their concern with a rigid "who says what" organization. In some ways, that concern is good (it's better than the often-dysfunctional habit of one-guy-ever narration), but if they miss this piece, then that concern becomes a bad thing.

The piece is this: "who narrates" refers to where the buck stops, not who speaks while the others all sit there dumbly. Offerings and discussion about what happens are encouraged. Anyone may suggest ideas to anyone else. Anyone may present the narration, or a component of it, that ends up being "what happens." The narrator is the person who has the final say over which suggestions get incorporated, and over how long he or she wants to listen to them.

It strikes me, Michael, that you're working more with the notion that the narrator of the moment is on the spot, in isolation, rather than in a position of authority over the dialogue with others.

You mentioned the next day that you'd realized, somewhat to your shock, that you rarely entered Actor Stance in role-playing anything. Here's my next question for you: when did you last get into your characters' motivations and operated from kind of an artistic gut-level coolness, or emotional investment, regarding what the character did? In what games? How often?

Best,
Ron

[Michael S. Miller]

The piece is this: "who narrates" refers to where the buck stops, not who speaks while the others all sit there dumbly.

Thanks Ron and everyone for clearing this up. Now I can truthfully finish the thread title with "I can't say 'I had fun playing Trollbabe' because I bit my tongue when I should have been playing." This helps a lot.

You mentioned the next day that you'd realized, somewhat to your shock, that you rarely entered Actor Stance in role-playing anything. Here's my next question for you: when did you last get into your characters' motivations and operated from kind of an artistic gut-level coolness, or emotional investment, regarding what the character did? In what games? How often?

The game I play most regularly as a player is Buffy. I manuever my character (a Slayer) into all sorts of angst, love triangles, befriendings of baddies, and load her with dialogue that means more than she thinks it does. Since the GNS essays says:

"Stance is defined as how a person arrives at decisions for an imaginary character's imaginary actions.
*   In Actor stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have.
*   In Author stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions based on the real person's priorities, then retroactively "motivates" the character to perform them.

I figured that Stance refers strictly to decision-making. In that case, these are all Author Stance decisions, right? But giving it some more thought, when I'm playing out the angst-ridden scenes I've set up, I also decide whether she looks her crush in the eye or looks down, whether she bites her lip after he turns away or not... I do this kind of stuff all the time, but i didn't really consider it Actor stance decisions.

It's difficult to draw the line of whether these small decisions are made becase "that's what the character would do" or because "that's what I'd want to see on my TV screen if we were filming this."  Since the character, being imaginary, is a subset of my own thought process, I'm not certain I can draw the line easily. Or that it's even worthwhile to do so...

[ejh]

Whoa!  That is an important point, Ron, and one I never understood.

Note that "narrates = the buck stops here" does not seem to apply to Donjon, which is where Trollbabe got the "player narrates on failure" mechanic.

In the narration example in Donjon I'm remembering, the player tries to narrate a bunch of rats the GM has thrown at him into subservient humanoids.  The GM says OK on the turning into humanoids part, nix on the subservient part.  That suggests to me that in Donjon, the buck stops with the GM no matter what.

[Alan]

Hi ejh,

In Donjon, the rules specifically state that the buck stops at the GM; in Trollbabe, the rules do not.

- Alan

[rafial]

In the narration example in Donjon I'm remembering, the player tries to narrate a bunch of rats the GM has thrown at him into subservient humanoids.  The GM says OK on the turning into humanoids part, nix on the subservient part.  That suggests to me that in Donjon, the buck stops with the GM no matter what.

Interesting point.  I just looked at what the two games have to say regarding the use of the narration mechanic in play (luckily both are on my hard drive).  In Donjon, a narrating player is constrained by the facts established by the die roll that spawned the narration.  Once the player wanders out of the territory established by the set of facts, the GM is explicitly empowered to veto anything she doesn't like.  (Chapter 4: The Law of Successes and narration, near the end of that section).

In Trollbabe, a narrating player is constrained by the goals established during free and clear, and the result of the series (was there injury?) (pages 16 & 33).  However, within these strictures his credibility is absolute.  And on top of that, the GM is similarly constrained when narrating a successful outcome.

Similar mechanics, with important but subtle differences in application.  Thanks for bringing that up.