Narrtivist mechanic in a simulist game.

[Asteele]

First post, so partial ignorance here.

I was hoping for advice for a way to add a narrtivist touch to a (basically sim) l5r game.  What I was thinking was providing the characters with a number of "story points" that could be wagered to allow the PC to take over the narritive for a short time.

Quick basics: l5r is a AEG fantasy Samuri game.  The dice mechanic in it that is relavent to my purposed mechanic is that you roll a number of "exploding" d10s (if a 10 comes up reroll and add the numbers together) which you add to a total.

What I was thinking is that players could use these points to do things like "I know the captain of the guard in this village, we trained at the same dojo before are gempukku. "  Or, "I happen to run into the diplomat the party is trying to impress, as a Eta is trying to mug him on the street".  The difficulty of the roll would be set by how unlikely or how directly benifical (without a conflict) the events were for the player.  Possibly a difficulty reduction could be included if the narration built in a disadvantage or conflict for the player.  If the roll succeeds the player narrates, if the roll fails the player still narrates, but then I as GM get a Capesesq But...  or and then... either into a kicker or a bang (if I'm using those words correctly.)   So in the two above examples, but... you falsely framed the guard captain for a discipline infraction when in school  and he's never forgiven you.  Or, you get to the diplomat, but he is using maho (evil illegal magic) to defend himself.  The first of those is a kicker, and the second a bang, right?

so what do you all think

[Shreyas Sampat]

Okay, for first things let's just toss all the flashy terms out the window. If I read your post, mentally replacing all of those pretty words with the syllable PHRLAR, it doesn't change my understanding of the post! This, to me, says that you don't need to use "narrativist" and such to get your point across. You're doing great without them.

Now, as for your mechanic, the one question I have about it is this: The difficulty of the roll would be set by how unlikely or how directly benifical (without a conflict) the events were for the player.

You're introducing a mechanism by which the players can step out of their characters and affect the larger world around them. That's awesome. But, with that sentence above, you send two messages, very loudly:

1) I am the GM and if I don't like (how unlikely) your idea, it's going to bite you in the ass.
2) I am the GM and I am your opponent (how directly beneficial), so whenever you try and improve your situation it's going to bite you in the ass.

Are these the messages that you want your mechanism to send? To me, they seem like unnecessary, aggressive suppression valves on what is otherwise a useful and cool idea; if you set the roll at a constant (or mechanically determined, algorithmic) difficulty and simply allowed the consequences it creates to be impersonal, it makes for a much more friendly collavorative environment.

[Asteele]

Thank you for the prompt reply.

Okay, for first things let's just toss all the flashy terms out the window. If I read your post, mentally replacing all of those pretty words with the syllable PHRLAR, it doesn't change my understanding of the post! This, to me, says that you don't need to use "narrativist" and such to get your point across. You're doing great without them.

Yea, your probably right, but in part this exercise is also about learning to use the Jargon on this forum correctly.  I'll admit it will take me time to do so.  And probably even longer to do so only when necessary :).

1) I am the GM and if I don't like (how unlikely) your idea, it's going to bite you in the ass.
2) I am the GM and I am your opponent (how directly beneficial), so whenever you try and improve your situation it's going to bite you in the ass.

Oddly enough at some level this is my inention.   Unlikely isn't a very percise word, I think I meant more, inplausable given the genre conventions of the game, or creates a larger impact on the setting.  So finding a lazer rifle is right out, and finding a magic sword is harder than finding a knife.

My intention was that the number of story points that could be spent is varible, so I would tell a player what the difficulty was for a certain alteration, and then they would decide if they wanted to attempt it at all, or attempt it with a varible amount of their resource to increase/decrease there chance of uncomplicated success.

Finally, I was going to make clear that my plan wasn't if you failed a roll that I was screwing them, my intention is to still give them what they want, but to either add a complication (your going to earn his forgiveness first), or raise the stakes (you can still get the diplomat on your side, but it means helping a criminal)

I guess my main difficutly is that I'm looking for help to make this a mechanic players use to give them chances to explore certain aspects of their character or the setting, not as a magic foo wand to overcome obstacles.

[Bankuei]

Hi Asteele,

Um... all the neat stuff you're talking about doesn't make narrativism.  It DOES give the players a little more input, but doesn't make narrativism.  Either the players have full control over their characters as tools for story input(barring conflict mechanics), or they don't...

So, if you want to give some more input to the story, without getting really complicated, I'd just make them use something like a roll of their Glory, Honor, School rank, or something like that vs. a TN based on the likelihood of what they're looking to input as.  

Example:  
"I want to meet up with an old rival from the Dojo"
"Let's see, you're School Rank 3, and you have a bunch of obnoxious disadvantages, like short temper, sure, roll 3 keep 3 against a TN of 15, and you got it"

This lets you use the traits that get used less often as a good way to put it in the players' faces about the characters' they're playing. "What's that, Honor 1?  Good luck finding someone to help you..."

If you truly want Narrativism, kickers, bangs, and all that, you have to make 2 major changes, which can be very hard for a group that has gotten used to a single way to play:

-No railroading, no blocking, no shutting down any viable player decision, this also means you can't have a prewritten plot

-A strong focus on Premise, a moral quandry or situation, which is pretty easy to set up with L5R's setting.  Between the corruption, ego, pride, unwavering duty, the idealistic vs. the cynical, it's not hard to come up with some nasty situations.  Especially if everyone actually has family who mean something, such as parents who have control over them, spouses and children to attend to, with needs and problems, as well as the Daimyos.  Easiest way to do it?  Just take any situation you'd find in a Dogs in the Vineyard town- someone is treating someone wrong, someone is going to overreact(or has), someone is tainted, and someone is sleeping with someone they shouldn't be.

You will also want to read Mike's thread on trying to shift CA modes here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9812

Chris

[Jasper]

Asteele,

Re: "The difficulty of the roll would be set by how unlikely or how directly benifical (without a conflict) the events were for the player."

This is the fundamental mechanic for a game I've written called Loqi.  The rules are fairly brief, but I go into some detail discussing how benefit, likelihood, and some other factors can be analyzed.  It might be helpful to you, I think.

It's free here: http://www.primevalpress.com/games/loqi/index.html

[Asteele]

Thanks Jasper, there is some converting and modification involved, but a system like this could be a useful framework for what I want.