Narrativism and the Campaign

[Mario]

After playing several Narrativist games, with Ron and Dav, I'm am curious if it is possible to play a Narrativist game as a Campaign.  By Campaign I mean a game that lasts for more than 5 - 10 sessions.  A game where you play the same character for a long period of time. Think traditional D&D.

Is it possible for a Narrativist story to be sustained over a 50 session period or longer?  Given that most Narrativist games don't have much in the way of advancement mechanics, or if they do there seems to be an end point to them, how does the character represent change, aside form the obvious answer, role-playing?  How do you avoid falling into the BobbyG style of story?  Will the characters stay vibrant throughout?

At the moment to me it seems that Narrativist style of gaming is better short and sweet. That it would loose most, if not all, its appeal in a longer style game. There by rendering Campaigns useless.

Another thought, when people play story heavy games, do you recall the story or the character more?  When you tell people about the games do you talk about your character and what he did or do you tell them what happened with the story regardless of which character was involved?

Mario

[Laurel]

Narrativist games need to end when the story ends.  The trick is to create an integratable Premise and character goals that can be sustained for 50+ sessions.  I personally think that longer Narrativist chronicles are more than possible, even easier to do than short ones.  The key is to know when its time to let the curtain call and not drag characters and players around when the show is over.

[Ben Morgan]

The never-ending campaign is something I'm pretty sure started with D&D, and simply never went away.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad about really long-lived characters, but personally, I have no problem with a series of stories, with the same character, each one 5-10 sessions or so. Each story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but they become part of a greater whole when strung together.

[Stivven]

The impression I get is that a campaign is viewed as a series of sessions, all sharaing the same character. To my mind this is a fairly narrow definition of a campaign. Surely it's possible to define a 'campaign' by appealing to sometihng other than the characters? For example, just as a game can be defined by a theme then surely a campaign can be also - the result being a situation where you have a character independent 'campaign' where the actual definition as a campaign arises from the thematic elements, not the fact that the same characters are involved.

As a more concrete example (it's not exactly applicable, but it at least goes in the right direction) of this I'd look to Ars Magica - there you have a situation where you have a network of characters unified by a covenant (which is analagous to the theme driven-definition of campaign). The lifespan of the covenant roughly describes the campaign cycle, but there is no limit to the number or variety of the other sub-campaigns that can occur under the auspices of the covenant. The (mis)adventures of grogs etc. could easily span the time generally associated with a long camapign, and the number of these easily excced the number of players. I'd even suggest that using this set up one could play therough several iterations f the same timeline, from many different perspectives, some of which may be overlapping.

As an afterthought I've a feeling, though that's all it is, that the same-PC style of campaign may be something that's enriched in situations where gamist concerns are given a high priority. I can't cite any evidence for this other than anecdotal, but it has a ring of 'sense' to it.

Steve

[Seth L. Blumberg]

The long-term same-PC style of campaign is also common in certain kinds of Simulationist play.  Exploration of Character, for instance, is enhanced by exposing the character(s) in question to as many different Situations as possible, while Exploration of Setting often becomes a travelogue.

[Zak Arntson]

After playing several Narrativist games, with Ron and Dav, I'm am curious if it is possible to play a Narrativist game as a Campaign.  By Campaign I mean a game that lasts for more than 5 - 10 sessions.

I would say that Campaign is a separate issue from GNS. It all depends on how you long you want your story to last. Jared's InSpectres has an episodic structure that could easily stretch out to 10+ games. Sorcerer, with its kickers, looks to lend itself to shorter games, but by introducing new kickers and even new characters, you could keep it going.

Session count per game, then, would be a factor of design. Perhaps this is an important thing to consier when designing: How long would you like a game to last? One session? Multiple sessions?

[Le Joueur]

After playing several Narrativist games, with Ron and Dav, I'm am curious if it is possible to play a Narrativist game as a Campaign.  By Campaign I mean a game that lasts for more than 5 - 10 sessions.

I would say that Campaign is a separate issue from GNS. It all depends on how you long you want your story to last. Jared's InSpectres has an episodic structure that could easily stretch out to 10+ games. Sorcerer, with its kickers, looks to lend itself to shorter games, but by introducing new kickers and even new characters, you could keep it going.

Session count per game, then, would be a factor of design. Perhaps this is an important thing to consier when designing: How long would you like a game to last? One session? Multiple sessions?

I'll have to echo the earlier commentary about pervy Narrativist games depending on having an ending to give them much of their 'kick.'

You might be interested on how other members of the forum consider 'episodic' a different animal from 'campaign.'  I remember a discussion just recently; it was about comedy gaming, but to paraphrase the old master, "Dying is Narrativist, comedy, now that's hard."  The difficulties are quite similar in running a campaign.

I agree that 'session count' is a design choice, but I'm not sure that campaign-length, pervy Narrativist games are even possible (and that's differentiating between campaign and episodic style games - 'episodes' have endings).

Fang Langford

[Mike Holmes]

I agree with Fang. An episodic structure can be kept up indefinitely, but the Soap Opera structure is more difficult with Narrativism, I think, and more likely to lend itself to Simulationism. Gamism, Of course, supposts whatever length series of challenges are presented, limited,of course, by any mechanics that end the game for a character (like death quite often).

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mario,

I think the Hero Wars game that I ran from, um, September 2000 until just last February certainly qualifies. I lost count of the sessions at one point, but I think it turned out to be about 45. Since we play together, you know how much can be packed into one of our sessions; the Hero Wars sessions tended to be a lot like our Demon Cops sessions. I'd argue that the entire Hero Wars game would be the equivalent of four or five years of 80s-game style play (Rolemaster, Champs, GURPS, all of which I have played extensively).

Apologies to everyone for the personal nature of the following material; it's pretty specific to Mario and me and I'm not taking time to explain the details to others.

I was also thinking about the Violence Future game ... in many ways, it was compressed into three sessions due to Kyber's pregnancy. If you two hadn't Invoked Fate three times each during that third session, the story could reasonably gone on for several more sessions - and I think, in fact, it would have been a lot more satisfying for your character to have had that time. We barely learned about one of his closest links and the story was over. Granted, my character probably could never have survived that session, considering how Fateful he'd become.

In some ways, your style of play requires a lot of bit-by-bit "finding" the character, which is a fine thing, and very consistent with the way my other group plays. I sometimes think that we're disrespecting that style by the rapid-fire mode that Dav and I tend to be doing in our group - "Get into it, do it, bam! be done." I still regret that we had to abort the Planescape/Hero Wars game when Elizabeth left town last year ... My plans for The Riddle of Steel are definitely longer-term, just as with the PS/HW.

Anyway, I think that long-term Narrativism can be done, and done well.

Best,
Ron