Scenario Conclusion, Various Observations

[jburneko]

Hello All,

On Saturday the current story arc of my Deadlands game came to a conclusion.  The session was a landmark in my gaming career since it ended what was basically my first experiment in incorporating Narrativist techniques, goals and mindsets into my game.  The results were extremely satisfying.  So, satisfying that this post is mostly just me running through the streets jumping and screaming with joy and laughter.

The game as a whole was a fairly functional Narrativist/Simulationist blend.  I think it worked because the Simulationist players in the group were mainly focused on 'being their characters.'  With these players I had to be very in-your-face about Premise centric conflict because I knew they wouldn't seek it out on their own.  It didn't bother them becase they still got to focus on being their characters despite the 'narratively uniform' set of conflicts their characters seemed to get invovled in and it didn't bother me since it was still their decisions ultimately driving the plot, I just had to work a little harder to keep things 'focused.'

Of course the few players that seemed to understand the freedom my shift in GMing styles had granted them were a delight.  One particular player, who I have NEVER discussed and ounce of theory with, began to gradually make more and more Narrativist driven decisions until in the final climactic moments of the game threw a hard hitting one-two combination of Premise/Theme centric and character redefining choices that just blew me away.  I think I scared her half to death when I immediately leapt from my chair, pointed at her and shouted at the rest of my other players (who I have discussed theory with to varying degrees), "And THAT, is what I mean when I talk about authoring a THEME!"

(Amusing side note: When the player announced the first of what would become her two punch combination I tossed her a blue 'fate' chip.  Now strickly according to the rules blue 'fate' chips are supposed to be awarded for, 'roleplaying your Hinderances to a degree that puts your character in a life threatening situation.'  I had, of course, awarded it for making such a damn juicy narrativist motivated decision.  One player, who understood perfectly well why I had awarded it, teased me by saying, 'WOW, being in love with Lucidus puts her in a life threatening position?  He must be one scary dude!"  Well... hmm... maybe you had to have been there.)

There were several firsts for me:

I looked over my initial notes from the begining of the arc, including what I thought would be potential outcomes and compared them to the actual climatic events and resolutions and for the first time in my entire gaming history they looked nothing alike.

I looked over all the characters and for the first time I actually saw real characters both from the NPCs the PCs.  The NPCs (despite being Deadlands campy) were more than just characatures and thinly disguised obstacles but actually had presense and meaning within the story.  The PCs felt distinct and unique and not like a single "many legged" protagonist with multiple personalities.

I finally ran an (unplanned) mass zombie attack that did not devolve into a well orchestrated tactical exercise in killing zombies but instead provided an exciting back drop that helped bring the remaining relevant conflicts into a climactic focus.  (By the way, if any of you are still unconvinced about system mattering I HIGHLY recommend running a four location mass battle using the Deadlands rule system and yet keeping the play focused on the immediate human conflicts and NOT the battle.  I pulled it off fairly nicely but MAN was that exhausting.)

Interesting Observations:

When I look at everything that happened I notice that if I picked a player and wrote down everything that happened from that player's perspective I'd end up with a pretty cool story with that charcter being the protagonist.  Each of these stories being very unique by the way as not every character was present in every scene nor reacted to the given conflicts identically.  However, I can't help but feel that if I tried to write the thing down as a whole I'd end up with a chaotic mess.  For those of you who have had more experience with Narrativism as a whole is this generally true?  Do you often end up with, say, six interlocking single protagonist short stories rather than one cohesive multi-protagonist novel?  Or is this more a side effect of having a Narrativist-Simulationist blend/Simulationist System/Inexperienced GM who's only trying this for the first time?

The scenario prep used the relationship map/backstory technique and it worked like a charm.  I found that one gets more milage out of this technique than any other planning technique I have ever tried mainly due to the 'snowball effect.'  That is rather than having scenes and encounters that just go off, are deat with and never heard from again, the entire game runs like a massive feed back loop so that a single planned scene generates two or three additional unplanned scenes.  This of course means that I used to spend days planning to generate enough material to last a single session.  With this technique a few hours worth of planning could generate two or three sessions worth of material.

Ron may have scientific reasons for it but let me just say that there really is something 'magical' about family and sexual relationships in the map.  The map was a big sprawl created by throwing every last idea I had left over from my more Simulationist days into one big pot.  The map contained more than just sex and family links but other kinds of 'weaker links.'  Sure enough without really anyone thinking about it the NPCs that were hooked up via weaker links just kind of faded away until the entire story seemed to naturally spiral inward until everything was focused on just a few NPCs, ALL of them, mysteriously related by sex and blood.

Well, that's it for now.  Hope this was interesting.

Jesse

[joshua neff]

That's very interesting, Jesse. Thanks for posting it. I have a feeling I'll be doing the same "madman running through the streets with joy" routine when my current Sorcerer run finishes up. (As it is, this is, bar none, the best GMing I've ever done. And one of my players emailed me today & said this was the best gaming experience he's ever had, & he's never been as pulled into a player character as he is with this game. Sweet.)

Good stuff.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Jesse,

Great post. And congratulations on your game!

For those of you who have had more experience with Narrativism as a whole is this generally true? Do you often end up with, say, six interlocking single protagonist short stories rather than one cohesive multi-protagonist novel?

This is generally how it works out for our group. Two or three of the player character narratives may work out to be more closely interleaved and more thematically cohesive, but basically our group generates separate, interlocking single-protagonist stories. There are shared NPC's and shared scenes, but we've never had a situation where each protagonist's narrative is a coherent comment on the narratives of the others or anything like that.

Honestly though, I'm not sure I could even cite an example of a cohesive multi-protagonist novel or film, and so it hasn't been the goal of my GMing. I mean, Star Wars isn't a multi-protagonist film. Everyone but Luke is an NPC in his story. The best of our games are more akin to a good "ensemble cast" film or TV program, like Homicide or something, except less slow-paced relative to individual player characters because there are fewer of them. How was your game different?

Or is this more a side effect of having a Narrativist-Simulationist blend/Simulationist System/Inexperienced GM who's only trying this for the first time?

I guess I can't rule out that it's an artifact of system. A game like InSpectres or Hero Wars, where shared objectives, and in the latter case, shared interest across player characters in the same manifestation of the same thematic issue, are built into the game mechanics, might produce a different result.

Paul

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Jesse,

Congratulations.

Sounds like all the work you've been doing to become the GM you want to be really paid off -- and will continue to do so in the future.

Take care,
Christopher

[joshua neff]

Jesse, now that Paul's answered the question, let me, as well:

Do you often end up with, say, six interlocking single protagonist short stories rather than one cohesive multi-protagonist novel?

In my current Sorcerer game, it's definitely more like a multi-protagonist novel (or in this case, WB TV show). The PCs all hang out together, they all move in & out of each other's main (Kicker) plots, they share info with each other. Because of that, the Kicker stories all tend to bleed into each other. We all work at it, it's not like "just happens". But my players are all pretty interested in the PCs being all part of the same story.

[hyphz]

Hello All,

On Saturday the current story arc of my Deadlands game came to a conclusion.  The session was a landmark in my gaming career since it ended what was basically my first experiment in incorporating Narrativist techniques, goals and mindsets into my game.  The results were extremely satisfying.  So, satisfying that this post is mostly just me running through the streets jumping and screaming with joy and laughter.

Well, don't tease :)  What did you actually _do_?