Narration as a simulationist device

[Alan]

Over in Indie Game Design I started a http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=40710#40710">Narrativist Space Trader topic.  While responding to questions about narrative premise, I had an interesting thought:

Can player narration of conflict results, with all the player-empowerment that it usually includes, be designed to support, even encourage, simulationist style play?

I don't know the answer, but the idea is intriguing.  Discussion?

- Alan

[Valamir]

First its important to distinguish

narrative...as in describing things that happen, from
Narrativist as meant in the  GNS model.

Another example of horrible and frequent confusion caused by unfortuneate choice of terms.

So if we restrict discussion to the former, I'd say the answer is absolutely yes...but.

Simulationism has a certain set of priorities.  These priorities at times directly conflict with Gamist priorities (and Narrativist priorities also).  IMO huge swaths of the history of traditional RPG design can be seen as a war between Simulationists and Gamists.  I believe that most of the rules in a Simulationist game are there for the precise reason of "defending" Simulationism...i.e. enforcing consideration of Simulationist elements on non Simulationist players.  In other words "you're not going to screw up my Sim experience by neglecting X so here are a bunch of rules forcing you to account for the type of thing I think is important"

The second big reason for rules in a Sim game is to educate the players on how things are supposed to work.  For example, a veteran soldier doesn't need to be told how to pack his gear and what kind of gear he's likely to have available in the field...he knows this.  Most of the rest of us don't.  So rules in the game on what kind of gear you have, how much it wieghs how much you can carry and the kind of trade off you face between having the items you need vs getting fatigued from carrying to much are defined by rules so that everyone is doing it "right".

IF you postulate a gaming group of devoted simulationists who all know the material intimately you then pretty much eliminate the reason behind the majority of all Sim rules.  At this point it becomes possible to have a fully 100% Sim experience completely free form.   In other words it is perfectly in keeping with Simulationist goals to give narration to players IF:  1) that player also shares Simulationist goals and thus can be relied upon not to break the Sim by doing Gamist or Nar type stuff with his power...and 2) that player is knowledgeable enough about the material to narrate appropriate things.

I knew a group of guys who would routinely play out Civil War miniatures battles without rules of any kind.  They knew the capabilities of the various units so well that they could simply adjucate what the result of 400 well formed veteran musket men firing into a mixed formation of disordered recruits would be.  The only rule they had was a simple 1d6 roll to account for good vs bad luck (high low or medium end of the range of possible outcomes).

So its possible to take a game (like Universalis, or Inspectres, or the Pool) and have a very very Simulationist experience as long as the above 2 items are true for all players involved.  Its when you start adding players who don't know the material well enough, or who don't care as much about enforcing a good simulation that the need to protect the integrity of the Sim through rules arises.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

My first point is about narration as a device during role-playing. Theoretically, the answer is "yes." If everyone is committed to the Simulationist mode of play, then there isn't any reason at all that anyone couldn't contribute verbally to "what happens" just as well as the GM can. Games which permit this are rather rare, although I have high hopes for The Million Worlds project.

Now for my second point: Narrati-vism as a subordinate to Simulationist play. I think it's quite possible, Alan. Just as The Riddle of Steel consistently uses Simulationist techniques to underly (or provide a "chassis of change" for) Narrativist goals, another game might consistently use the presence of a developing story, which addresses a Premise in the classic Narrativist fashion, to underly the primary goal - which is, straightforwardly, to experience (Explore) that story. I call this Exploration of Situation - to understand this terminology, recall that Situation requires Character and Setting.

Some of you might be going, "Hey ...!" about now. You should. This ideal of design is very, very common. A lot of Illusionist play is based on it, and a lot of game design is built to support that. It's at the heart of metaplot-heavy publishing. It's central to playing Call of Cthulhu.

The difficulties and limitations of this design are as follows:

1) Forgetting which mode is the "driver" and either becoming Narrativist (which, unless it's unanimous and explicit, results in Incoherence) or succumbing to the counterproductive ideal of The Impossible Thing.

2) Putting all responsibility for "the story" onto either the published texts or the GM - i.e., to play in this fashion, the story (i.e. its scenarios and situations) must be construct-able in a way that works. That might happen prior to or after play, but it's gotta be possible and make sense. Just waving one's hands ("The GM is the Story-God! Praise the GM!") isn't enough; neither is providing an indigestible wad of text ("The eighth supplement reveals who killed the Ambassador back in the second supplement ...").

Best,
Ron