d20 to Heroquest: introducing narrativism?

[CCW]

Hi

This is my first forge post (though I've been lurking for a few months).  I've found the discussions here extremely useful and remarkably inspiring.

Predictably, in my first post I'm looking for advice.

My friends and I plan to start up our regular gaming group again (after a summer hiatus) in a couple of weeks.  I've suggested, and they've agreed, to switch systems from a highly house-ruled d20 (in a bronze-age setting) to Heroquest.

I was tired of having to come up with more and more house rules just so we could play the way we wanted to, and Heroquest looked useable without modification.  The characters were also reaching the point when their adversaries would take me hours to write up (classes, templates, skills, feats, magic items, oh my!).  Moreover, I guess I felt that Heroquest would make it easier to expand the story beyond monster killing (though we all enjoy that a lot too).

We've had one exploratory game already (with only two of four players) and it went pretty well.  While there will likely be some hiccups while people (not least of all myself) learn the system, I'm optimistic in this respect.

What I wonder about (and this perhaps only because of far too much reading of these forums) is whether I should suggest a serious discussion of creative agenda.  How important is it for the player's agendas to be laid out before play?  We've been having a pretty good time up to now; will it improve our game if we all agree, explicitly, to try a narrativist approach (my likely preference, and one supported by Heroquest)?  I think that, so far, we've been playing something pretty mixed, though there has, I think, been some drift towards narrativism.

One of my problems is identifying my players' preferences.  I'm not sure how to ask them directly without bringing in forge-speak and possibly putting them off the whole thing.  They all lead busy lives (I'm the youngest at 35) and for the most part prefer not to spend too many hours talking about (or e-mailing about) the game when we aren't actually playing.  

Is it too much to introduce a new game system and a new theory of role-playing at the same time?  Should I get on with playing the game instead of getting myself too tired for work over this?

Thanks,

Charles

[Trevis Martin]

Hi Charles,

You're the best judge of your friends but I will contribute a couple of thoughts.

I find that discussing the theory makes the try of the agenda too self conscious. It also has the side affect of possibly starting a 'right way to roleplay' kinda thing.  There is no right way.  You are best off just playing the game as written and making sure you understand all the implications of the system.  It will happen by itself.  Perhaps trying a variety of games that seem to support the agenda you want to experiment with and see how you like them.

If they're interested in this stuff why not casually direct them here to consider the ideas for themselves?

best,

Trevis

[Peter Nordstrand]

Hi,

Having tried different approaches when introducing Nar play, I must say that I agree with Trevis Martin. A theoretical discussion about Creative Agendas rarely work, and might in fact have the opposite effect from what you intended. Essentially, "just play the game for a couple of sessions" is probably good advice.

Also, if you are interested in Nar, focus a lot on relationships; use the relationship rules of HeroQuest, and make sure that the players understand how to use their relationships to people and communities to their own advantage.

All the best,

[CCW]

Trevis and Peter,

Thanks for the suggestions.  I'm rather glad that you advised against the direct approach.  Play will be much more fun if we aren't always asking how premise-ful we're being.

My players have already shown lots of interest in relationships while playing d20, going so far as to create new NPCs (without prompting from me), or declare themselves relatives of NPCs I've introduced.  This is one reason that I think Heroquest will be a good fit.

Charles

[Thor]

I have been trying to drift D20 recently toward something that felt "more right" and in the process I have come up with a game that looks a whole lot on paper like HeroQuest. So I was wondering; what features did the group take to easily and what has seemed harder?

[CCW]

Hi Thor,

I think I know how you feel.  I'll be better able to answer your question after we've played a bit more (which we'll do in a week or so).  I may post something in Actual play after we've actually played.

Charles

[epweissengruber]

Some players are used to navigating their characters through mazes and squaring off against antagonists.  Maps, charts, HeroClix help them visualize this.

So, why not spatialize your story.  If you set up a chart with, lets say competing factions, and position your heroes in relationship to those forces, say by using sticky notes to show when they are entering the sphere of influence of one faction, they can see their character's choices (ethical and moral rather than tactical) embodied in space.  

In other words, something like relationship maps or character webs or venn diagrams of political conspiracies or a version of the D&D alignment chart that replaces alignment terms with with ethical/political/sexual dimensions, will all help players realize that Narrativist role playing is just a different version of practices that they are already familiar with.

[epweissengruber]

Some players are used to navigating their characters through mazes and squaring off against antagonists.  Maps, charts, HeroClix help them visualize this.

So, why not spatialize your story.  If you set up a chart with, lets say competing factions, and position your heroes in relationship to those forces, say by using sticky notes to show when they are entering the sphere of influence of one faction, they can see their character's choices (ethical and moral rather than tactical) embodied in space.  

In other words, something like relationship maps or character webs or venn diagrams of political conspiracies or a version of the D&D alignment chart that replaces alignment terms with with ethical/political/sexual dimensions, will all help players realize that Narrativist role playing is just a different version of practices that they are already familiar with.

[Scripty]

I tried (unsuccessfully) to move a d20 group from D&D to HeroQuest. One of my BIGGEST mistakes was bringing out the Forge lingo. It didn't help that I myself was just getting accustomed to the terminology and its practical application. My approach was: "Hey, this is a new way of playing! Let's try it out and see how it works." Not that there's anything wrong with that approach on its own, but when the first thing you launch into is ---

"A long, long, time ago... in a Galaxy called the Forge... Jedi Ron Edwards whipped up "Story Now"...."

I was dejected/disappointed/crushed that players didn't share my enthusiasm for all this theory stuff. I understand better now that my first steps were my worst steps.

That said...

There's a lot to this Narr thing. And a lot that I think many people don't catch... at all... Especially in my first read-through. I've now read the whole Sorcerer line twice in the last month after having a Zen-koan-like epiphany and realizing: "Wow! I really didn't get this at all..."

With some of these new perspectives/paradigms, I can honestly say that, in my whole career of playing, I have not played in a single Narr game. Not as set out by Ron in his essay and in his Sorcerer books. I've come close. In fact, the closest I've come was Mike's Shadow World game (which, by its strictest interpretation, is a Narr-Sim hybrid) or a game with my last group where the GM just let the players run amok. It wasn't highbrow Narr (or even intentional Narr) but it was a close approximation to what Ron's talking about.

I have, however, stumbled onto Narr in some games that I ran. I know now better than I did what I did right (and what I did wrong) and maybe some of this will help you.

First off, using relationship maps at the table is a good thing. Using them at all is pretty critical. Ron mentioned here on the Forge that he's used diagrams and charts at the table to help people keep the relationships between different NPCs straight. It's my opinion that this is the way to go if you plan on using more than 7 NPCs in the game (which, in HQ, may just barely account for the PC's followers).

Next, make your PCs the main crux of the story. This is something that is repeated over and over in Sorcerer that I think is critical to Narr play. I find it difficult to fathom how a Narr game can be put together without knowing the characters beforehand. In retrospect, one of my next biggest mistakes was coming up with the relationship map and a concrete setting prior to character creation. It was just bad news. The PCs weren't tied into the setting (because they had no choice/say in it) and the PCs found it hard to really care about the Relationship Map (again because they had no real stake in it). If I could call a "do-over" I would've waited until after the characters were created and I had a handle on what type of game the players wanted before putting together my RelMaps. I would've also left my setting a bit more vague at the start, allowing for more player creativity at the onset.

Another thing I'd consider is the scale of the adventure/campaign. I've found it easier to start small. In fact, the moments where I sort of intuited Narr GMing from the subliminal messages here at the Forge were almost always situations where the stakes of the adventure were very small and very personal to the characters involved. The Big, Evil, Bad Nasty was something we built up to. A lot of times my d20 group would run off to "save the world" against some huge, nearly insurmountable threat. But we got our most Narr moments when it was just a roving barbarian betraying his clan to save a comrade from an evil curse. That was deep stuff (and very Narr-oriented), beating down the Dragon-of-the-week wasn't (but it could be given the right circumstances and build-up).

I'm not sure if I would've tried to start off my first session with a "Kicker". Although I understand them much better now, then I didn't. And the players didn't either. So we wound up with lousy kickers, a lousy start, and it just got really painful for that first session.

Maybe just taking the time after character creation to discuss with the players what their character is like, what makes him tick and then working into a kicker from there might do it. Or getting players to give their PCs a Feng-Shui style "Melodramatic Hook" and parsing a Kicker from a brief discussion. Keeping the RelMap open, though, is important here, IMO, as I think that tying a PC's kicker into what's going on around them is very important for putting PCs at the center of the action (and thus creating the story there with them as opposed to around them).

An example, I guess, was my first session (a flop) where I described what a Kicker was and asked the players to come up with one. Bad move. Really, freakin' bad move.

In contrast, two sessions later I summarized where I thought the story was going. It was actually a player's question that spurred it on:

"So, do I need to write up another character or will my PC get rid of this curse?"

To which I replied, "Of course, you'll get rid of the curse. That's a given."

But then it occurred to me...

"How do you plan to get rid of the curse, though?"

What followed was essentially the players piecing together Kickers through a group-brainstorm exercise that developed (a week later) into the most Narr play I'd ever been a part of. The "story" developed entirely from the players' perspective, not from mine. I was a participant but really didn't have much more say in the matter beyond that. It was a brief moment of savantism where I put to use all the things I "understand" now, with absolutely no understanding. And no means of repeating the results.

Hence, my game crumbled. Soon issues began to evolve around the definitions of terms that even I only partially understood. Politics crept in. And nothing grows where political ambitions take root. End of story.

Learn from my mistakes. Check out these threads:

http://indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=753
http://indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=770
http://indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=828
http://indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=876

And succeed where I did not.

Scott

P.S. The threads posted are for the "Art-Deco Melodrama" game where Ron pointed out how he prepares for a game of Sorcerer. Most of the concepts could easily apply to a Narr HQ game. If you're really interested in running Narr, I can't think of any single document that would be of more use. Otherwise, HQ does Sim very well (better in terms of portraying people in a particular setting, IMO, than d20) but the focus of HQ-Sim seems to work best when applied to a cultural perspective. Again, advice would be to start small (at a tribal or community level) and branch out from there. Beyond that, yep, a focus on relationships would be helpful in HQ-Sim as well, although HQ-Sim would be prepped a lot like a *normal* RPG session, IME.

[CCW]

Scott,

Sorry for the long delay in replying.  In fact I've found a lot your various posts really useful in doing this conversion.  Thanks for all the help, even if you only recently knew you were helping.

I don't think my game is really going to be pure anything and so far (we've played 2 sessions using Heroquest) it's been mostly sim.  Or so I would guess from my limited understanding of the terminology. Some of the players are starting to really get into the relationship thing though.

In truth, I doubt it matters that much as long as we're all having fun, and I think we are.

Thanks again,

Charles

[Mike Holmes]

In truth, I doubt it matters that much as long as we're all having fun, and I think we are.

This is precisely so. The theory is theory, what works in practice is what one should do in practice.

That said, no reason not to try new things, either. Fear is no reason to fail to improve things. I very much am against the "If it ain't broke..." mantra. To me, "If it ain't broke, mess with it anyhow, and see if things get any better." Because, if not, you can always backtrack to what worked. Rarely have I seen well conducted experiements result in a destruction of the game. At worst they just fizzle, and you go back to what was working. At best, things get better. Maybe much better.

Take a look at some of the techniques that Scripty is talking about above. Instead of "talking" about changing the game, "Show don't tell." That is, if you start playing with some of these techniques, the players may follow along and get the vision of what you're trying to do. You have the support of the system (I believe) in doing the sort of things that he's talking about, so go for it. Again, if the players don't bite, you're not really at all worse off for trying, and you've learned something as well.

Mike

[CCW]

Mike, hopefully I didn't imply that my motto is "if it ain't broke..."  That phrase is one of the most aggravating excuses for complacency...it makes me want to tear my hair out.

It's just that before we started playing, I sometimes found myself really getting stressed out about whether or not players would be ADDRESSING PREMISE.  Then I got stressed about the fact I was stressed.  Now that it's in motion, I've relaxed considerably and I'm happy to try to introduce narrativist elements without being overly invested in the result.  It was a sort of stage fright, I guess.

Scripty, I really like your idea of a group piecing together of Kickers session, and I'd like to try it at this weeks game.  As your game was, we are in the middle of things here and don't really have the opportunity to make all new characters (I'm attempting what my be the most foolish approach to this sort of thing: converting a campaign mid-stream, with existing characters and storyline).  

Nonetheless, we've come to a pretty good break-point /end of season, so now would be a good time to do this.  I think the threads you suggested should be a big help in trying to figure out how to piece together a kicker-like entity (I don't own sorcerer, alas, and am not 100% clear on the concept yet).

How would people recommend introducing this idea to my players?

Charles

[lightcastle]

Hey Charles.

Not having Sorcerer either, I'm also a little vague on the whole kicker concept. But I've read a lot here.  I am just starting a campaign based in Glorantha, with people who have mostly been d20 and White Wolf players. I decided to NOT overload them with Forge speak about Narrativism and the like.  Especially since I doubt I could explain it well in the first place.

I tried explaining Kickers with examples from movies of that first scene you get a character in. The one that gives us a sense of what his or her story is about. (In particular, I used the introduction of Han Solo in Star Wars, in which we know he is a smuggler, dumped a cargo, and is in hot water with his boss. I figure if that was a PC, he would have set up those conditions and as a kicker said, "I find out that Jabba knows, and he sends someone to talk to me as I try and scrounge up a job.")

That's probably not a good example. Since I'm also trying something new, I figure my game will be a hybrid something, I just want to try adding some new ideas and see if they make things more fun.

But I did get the players together to talk about how all their characters have a story arc their pursuing/investigating. So the Merchant with links to the rebellion's leader (but not really the rebellion) is exploring his ambition versus his old loyalties. The Shipwrecked Sorcerer is putting together a story about how much evil he will commit to free his people from a greater evil. And the Runaway Scholar is looking at a redemption story, how can you ever atone for the inexcusable?  Deciding all that made it much easier for them to make their characters. (They came up with what kind of story they wanted to try and then made a character that would let them do it.)

I don't know if any of that helps really.

[CCW]

Lightcastle,

It does help, thanks.  Examples of how other people have gone about this sort of thing are something I certainly need.  I agree that Forge speak is right out, and thanks for the idea of using opening scenes from movies.

It sounds like each of your players has defined a conflict that their character wants to resolve, a question that needs to be answered.  There is probably a lot of material from the campaign so far for my players to draw on to do the same for their characters.

I suppose there are two routes to narrativist play: one is to start with this central conflict and then find situations to address it, the other is to start with a life changing situation and then explore how that creates an interior conflict.

Charles

[Mike Holmes]

Mike, hopefully I didn't imply that my motto is "if it ain't broke..."  

Not at all. Sorry for the mini-rant.

It's just that before we started playing, I sometimes found myself really getting stressed out about whether or not players would be ADDRESSING PREMISE.  Then I got stressed about the fact I was stressed.  Now that it's in motion, I've relaxed considerably and I'm happy to try to introduce narrativist elements without being overly invested in the result.  It was a sort of stage fright, I guess.

That's understandable. But it comes from a notion that narrativism requires "something extra" beyond normal play. This is the part that's hard to get people to understand. "Addressing Premise" is a description we use here to describe what happens in play. It's not something that you consciously do in play. You don't say, "Gee, there's an interesting premise, I think I'll address it by doing X, thus creating theme A." Just doesn't happen (well, for we who theorize about it all day, it might occur as an analytical afterthought). Instead, you just do what you've always done in a RPG, make decisions for your character - play your character.

What makes play narrativism is when the situation created by the GM and players is such that the decisions being made are about premise sorts of stuff. Now, that sounds like one has to be thinking about premise. But actually it comes from one of two sources in play. Either this is the way that the players normally play all the time, or the system promotes creation of such situations.

In the first case, some players just play this way naturally. I'm going to do something that I'm not supposed to do, so please pay attention to the caveats. In the following example, we're assuming that we know what the player is thinking and feeling in order to have a sure diagnosis of what's going on. Which is to say that the outcome play could under other circumstances be other modes than the diagnosis. The intent is to show how, in fact, some players are addressing premise while others are doing other things.

Let's say that the situation is that a character has found out that his lover is sleeping with somebody else, and he now has a chance to assassinate that person. If the player is thinking that he doesn't want to kill the character in question because he'll lose experience points due to an alignment restriction, then this is gamism. If he decides to kill the character in question because it's cool and cathartic for him as a player to feel a theme of vengeance created, then it's narrativism.

Note that in both cases that the player probably didn't think about it at all, it just happens.

Note, too, that I've covered the second case in the example. Which is to show how a system might support a particular sort of decision-making. If, in fact, there are alignment restrictions that cause certain penalties for certain actions that result in less power for the character, then the system is supporting Gamism, and it's likely to occur as people make decisions in the context of said system.

For your game, consider first that your players may be, to some extent, already playing narrativism. Do they ever do tactically unsound things because it's cool? Like charging into battle because their character is angry when it would make more sense to wait and ambush? This may be narrativism in action. Do they ever make decisions that end up with their characters in dilemmas? This may be setting up situations in which narrativism can be used.

Further, even when the player does the tactical thing, or avoids conflict, that might be narrativism, too. Again, from outcomes it's hard to say what's going on in many cases. But narrativism is far more common than people think it is, and not at all something that takes special work to achieve.

Also for your game, consider that you already have taken the largest and most important step in getting narrativism to happen, you're playing a system that supports it. Look at your players' character sheets. Do you see homelands? Do you see occupations? Do you see religions and magic? Do you see personality traits, and relationships related to each of these? What you're seeing is premise, tons of it.

For example, let's say that a player has a character from a typically violent homeland, with an occupation of merchant. Do you see the conflict inherent there? What does he do in a foreign land if insulted, say? Does he react violently, or does he play nice so as not to scare off business prospects?

Hero Quest constantly asks the question "Who is this character, and what does he believe?"

Now, that all said, it is possible to ignore all of that premise, and play in a traditionally simulationsim mode. It's even possible to use gamism, but the system really plays against that mode. So I'm not saying that your players will automatically go to narrativism just because of the system.

But I am saying that if they had any inclination towards narrativism before, that the system itself will tend to draw that out. Not as strongly as, say, Sorcerer, but in a subtle, and, to me, very profound way.

This is all to say that you probably don't have a ton to worry about. If the players seem to like the system, that means that it's supporting the mode they like, which means that they're likely the sorts who like narrativism. No matter what it seemed like before.

Scripty, I really like your idea of a group piecing together of Kickers session, and I'd like to try it at this weeks game.  As your game was, we are in the middle of things here and don't really have the opportunity to make all new characters

Kickers are potent narrativism juju. But realize that unless you guide the players tightly on this that the kickers won't be the sorts of situations that promote narrativism. For example, if the player says that his kicker is that he's discovered that the ancient sword of his people has resurfaced in a far off land, that may at first seem to have some depth to it - it does. But it's gamism promoting. Note that nowhere in the premise is there any sign of any dilemma or problem internal to the character. Not potential for conflict in the literature sense. It simply implies tasks to overcome in order to gain more power.

The point is that players who like narrativism, will make kickers that support narrativism. Those who do not will make non-kickers (kickers being defined by setting up narrativism supporting situations). Inappropriate kickers are a cliche at this point.

Further, look for the subtle kickers already present on the character sheet. Again, you may have to look no further than the fact that the character comes from a peaceful homeland, but is a warrior. Once you see these potential conflicts it's pretty darned easy to create the appropriate situation from what's on the sheet.

In addition, if you do decide to do explicit kickers, then try to ensure that they are linked to things on the character sheet. In fact, I'd forbid any kicker that wasn't represented by stats on the character sheet. Or, alternatively, I'd give them stats to represent the pressures of the kicker (considering the kicker to be part of the narrative character creation method). Because central to making Hero Quest play work around an issue is ensuring that there are numbers on the character sheet related to it.

(I'm attempting what my be the most foolish approach to this sort of thing: converting a campaign mid-stream, with existing characters and storyline).  

I wouldn't say foolish, but I'd agree with difficult. That said, I'm pulling for you, and hope to see glowing reports of success.

I suppose there are two routes to narrativist play: one is to start with this central conflict and then find situations to address it, the other is to start with a life changing situation and then explore how that creates an interior conflict.

Yeah, sorta. Actually, in the end play, these work the same. That is, the whole "central question" idea doesn't imply that each character is answering precisely the same question. That is, if Sorcerer's premise is "What would you do for power?" then Hero Quest's central premise is "What do you believe, and what would you do for it?" In both of these cases, however, the player never encounters this question on this level. In all cases such "global" premises are tailored to the specific character, reducing it to something more personal. So, for one Sorcerer character the question is, "Would you trade your sanity for the life of a loved one?"  For a Hero Quest character the question might be, "Is your culture worth defending even though it does blindly violent things?"

Note, too, that these premises are unconsciously created, as I've said above, and that they change constantly. The question is never static, it's created by the current situation. Nobldy actually formulates these questions in play, they are just how we describe what's happening from an analytical POV. In the game, the situation provides the question implicitly. Is your culture about to butcher innocent women and children in the name of self-defense ("They'll grow to plague us one day if we don't!")? Then the above question may be being asked. But the participants just play. You answer the question by stepping in front of your chieftain and protecting a child and telling him that what they're about to do is madness. Or by taking aim at the nearest threat to your culture.

Given the right situation, it just happens.

So, this is all kickers are: asking the player to establish such a situation, such a localized premise for his character. Thing is, for Hero Quest, this will inform only a relatively short part of the character's life. That is, designed for Sorcerer, Kickers are meant to be resolved in a few sessions of play, and for the character to then possibly be complete (or they can make a new kicker). The advantage of kickers is that they ensure, in theory, that the player is engaged with the situation in question - the idea is, why would they create a situation that they didn't want to play through?

But for long term play, the HQ stats serve just as well, or better for the sorts of premises that HQ best supports. I'm not saying don't do kickers, try them for fun. They'll work to start things off on the right foot. But for long term play, look to the character sheets.

What you do then is steal another Sorcerer technique, far more important to good HQ play, Bangs. Check out the concept as presented in the Art-Deco Melodrama threads that Scott provided. But, essentially, it means presenting the character with a situation that forces the player to reveal the character in some decision. The best bangs are more complex than simple dilemmas, but dilemmas are the easiest to describe. So, for example, having somebody insult the violent cultured merchant as I have it above is a Bang. Set up correctly, with friends from his culture watching, and potential customers on the other side of the tavern, the player can't help but make a choice. Either he redeems his honor with his pals, or he gets in good with the customers. Actually, there are always other options in these cases, he could waffle, which creates an indecisiveness theme, or get very creative and solve for both sides indicating that he's really concerned with both. But the player can't say nothing. Even if he walks away, he makes some sort of a statement.

This is truely, to me, the key to narrativism. That is, the GM presenting situations that don't have a tactical solution, no win condition. Often, but not always, actual "no win" situations for the character. That sort of thing. Presented with such situations, the players quickly see what your agenda is for the game, and will follow suit if they like what they see.

Consider that the conflict resolution system is almost irrelevant to this process. That is, win or lose in contests, doesn't matter much in terms of decision making in this mode of play. The output of the system, however, is keenly designed to create more bangs. That is, "injuries" should be seen as things upon which to build further Bangs. For example, let's say that the merchant in my continuing example decides to insult his insulter back. This is the key decision here, not the subsequent contest. Should he lose the contest, however, and get a -50% to influence either his pals or prospective customers, then a new conflict almost creates itself. Do I accept this situation, or avenge myself somehow?

So, consider well the outcomes of contests, and do not, I say again, do not be afraid to have the heroes lose contests. Rate narrator characters plausibly, meaning that starting player heroes will be relatively weak in many cases. This makes winning even more exciting if it happens. And losing means more building blocks with which to build further bangs. You can't lose as GM here, as long as you remember the "Yes, but," principle. Meaning failure doesn't mean that conflict has ended, in fact, the opposite. HQ is awesome when used that way.

Any of this making sense?

Mike