[LoL] Encouraging Narration

[dindenver]

Hi!
  OK, I have a question from the design pros:
  "How do you encourage the casual gamer, you know the kind who have only played 'mainstream games,' to narrate with a little more flair?"
  Somethings to elaborate:

• It's a game with a GM
• It's task resolution
• It already has a sort of "Kicker" mechanism, but what I am asking for is different
• I currently have a "Stunt Bonus" type mechanism, but no one in my group is using it (possibly do to me not advertising it much) and other designers seem to think it is kind of flimsy

  So the question is, without losing the GM or Task Resolution, how do we encourage players that are not normally very talkative to elaborate in their description of their actions?

[Thunder_God]

Erm, I'd say move to Conflict Resolution. Why do you want to keep it Task based? The moment one has Task and then has to narrate how things went it serves as a good bridge between mainstream games and less mainstream games. Kicker also helps.

How much Narr do you want it to have? I suggest easing people in if they don't seem like they're interested in heavy Narr just yet. Contagious Meme.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Just trying to encourage more than "I attack it with my sword" that's all. My game is huge and I am pretty happy with how it has turned out. I've been playtesting the current version for about 3 months and it is going swimmingly. But if I could get players a little more "into" the game if possible, it would be very good. I am just trying some last minute tweaks while I try and get editing and art figured out. Any suggestions about what works and what definitely doesn't work would be much appreciated.

[Thunder_God]

Don't do these last minute changes is my first suggestion.

Second, Kickers and Stunts(however watered down) should be enough to begin building the bridge between Old and New. Do it slowly, don't run without cause.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Thanks for the advice Guy, anyone else have any comments or suggestions?

[Shreyas Sampat]

Information information information.

If all a player knows about a task is what he did and whether he win or loses (or worse, if all he knows is what he's trying to do!), then what does he have to talk about? Every discrete piece of data the player has the responsibility or incentive to narrate encourages him to do so.

In a game where you want the players to have something to say, you need to give them something to talk about. You mention Stunts, so think about how they work in Exalted - here, the player is explicitly licensed (in the second edition, anyway) to take on a director role and descriptively edit the environment, adding previously unknown things. This gives the player access to unlimited props, and rewards him for using them, as well as character action, for his description. Similarly, the stunt bonus is scaled up for dovetailing into the character's epic Motivation; this is possibly an infrequent event, but it does visibly (rather than implicitly) inform the player that that's stunting fodder.

You might find some inspiration looking at Kirt Dankmyer's Otherkind adaptation, Pretender, as well. It takes Otherkind and adds optional categories you can place your dice in for various reasons, again giving you useful data you can incorporate into narration.

[Selene Tan]

Another possibility just came to mind: how are you, as a GM, reacting after the dice are rolled? Do you just say "Okay, you succeeded in attacking with a sword, you've dealt X damage?" Or do you prompt for more description? Because I've noticed that what a lot of people expect is:

1) determine what the player wants to do
2) determine if it succeeded or failed
3) move on

sometimes there's 2b) acknowledge the success or failure ("Okay, you hit the bad guy")

What I think you want is:
1) determine what the player wants to do
2) determine if it succeeded or failed
3) give an enhanced description of what happened given the knowledge of success or failure
4) move on

To get step 3 in the second version to happen, you'll need to be more explicit about expecting it. Eventually, people should get used to it and you won't have to keep prompting.

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

I'll spitball a few quick ideas, from my table-top GMing days (I'm all about LARP, now).

1) Introduce more tactics - If the game offers cover and aiming and height and reach bonuses, players might try to narrate into those bonuses. "I duck behind the barrel, rest my gun on it, and open fire on the invaders--Ranged Attack at +2." Note that this could be applied to non-combat, also. "I move to stand closer to her, letting my cologne's scent fill her nostrils, and stare into her eyes as I compliment her--Seduction roll at +3."

2) Make time less discrete - As you may have noticed from (1) above, allowing a player to take more than one discrete action at a time lends itself to more narration. After all, if all someone can do it take an attack or make a move or, maybe, do some special action each "turn," then that's all a player is going to try to do: one discrete (i.e. simple) thing. Once the player's actions are reduced to one per declaration, all you will get for "narration" is adjectives.

3) Ask players to dictate results determined by the rules - Drop the typical (traditional) Player-Acts, System-&-GM-Resolves, GM-Explains method to conduct "turns" and instead adopt a Player-Acts, System-Resolves, Player-Explains process. Any number of mechanics support this: number of successes = extra damage to narrate or additional game-state facts to set; roll a crit and you can say what made it a crit; whatever.

4) Reward creativity - If someone is "narrating right" for your purposes, simply say, "Great narration: have an Experience point [or 20 or 100 or whatever] for that, right now." Positive feedback is a powerful motivator.

5) Punish puerility - If someone is too flat, dull, or silly to be "narrating right" for your game, assign negative modifiers to their roll. This is the antithesis of you Stunt Bonus (I reckon) and of my Experience Treat (4) above. It even fits (1) in a way: if someone is NOT taking advvantage of tactics and timing and mobility, they become "flat footed" in the actual rules mechanics and suffer penalties. In other words, there is no "neutral" value that has no penalty nor bonus: if you are NOT getting a bonus, you are penalized. [Damned if you DON'T, for sure!]

More to come--have fun with those for now. In general, this thread has the potential to speak to core (fundamental) game design facets of Narrativist play: what is the full formal range of "hooks" between System, Techniques, [and Ephemera?] and the Narrativist Creative Agenda?
David

[Shreyas Sampat]

I don't think it a good idea to punish unacceptable narration when you are trying to encourage narration: When you punish a player, you are telling him, "Don't do that," and that will generate turtling; if you don't narrate then you can't be punished for bad narration.

When you only reward desired narration, you create something to reach for, and as the players try to reach for it (you must have a reward significant enough to make the players care, see the profound resource value of Stunts in Exalted) and learn what is rewarded narration, they will build the skill to create that kind of narration more reliably.

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

I don't think it a good idea to punish unacceptable narration when you are trying to encourage narration: When you punish a player, you are telling him, "Don't do that," and that will generate turtling; if you don't narrate then you can't be punished for bad narration.

Your point does not speak to what I said--and it in fact begs the question.

My point 5: If a player is narrating "too flat, dumb, or silly" then they get a penalty. Do you actually recommend rewarding people whose narration is just a repetition of someone else's previous narration, or a quote from some movie, or some joke from Saturday Night Live, or...?

Further in my point 5: if they do not gain an advantage from something, they get a penalty (I wrote, "if someone is NOT taking advantage of tactics and timing and mobility, they become 'flat footed' in the actual rules mechanics and suffer penalties"). Thus, one can't have a "zero value" in total bonuses and penalties, with my idea: one has a positive for TRYING to narrate in the spirit of the game, or a negative for not trying OR for being puerile (interfering with all but the lightest comical theme exploration).

Then, you claim that my method 5 leads to folks not narrating because they can't be punished--that's in fact quite the opposite of my suggestion 5: doing NO narration GUARANTEES a penalty; while attempting narration means you will (a) probably gain a bonus for trying or, at worst (b) get the same penalty you would get for saying nothing, if you act the fool.

When you only reward desired narration, you create something to reach for, and as the players try to reach for it (you must have a reward significant enough to make the players care, see the profound resource value of Stunts in Exalted) and learn what is rewarded narration, they will build the skill to create that kind of narration more reliably.

Meh... maybe in your opinion. I have found that patting the players on the head for every narrative utterance--no matter how puerile or off-track--drags down the overall quality of narration and play. What's to make others bust their asses when the "newbie" gets the same bonus for his Star Trek line and scene rehashes?

But, hey, if it works for you... go for it. I was posting suggestions to Dave that might lead to quality narration.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  I am sort of targetting this rules idea for turtles. I would rather have I go Yoda on his ass, than I attack with my sword.
  I want to set the bar so low that even a little description is rewarded. So it should give a bonus similar to to Stunts in Exalted, but the requirement for the bonus is lower...

Here's the rule:

Narrative Difficulty Modifier Table
Quality------Difficulty Modifier--Example
Normal----------- +0-----------I attack him with my sword
Descriptive------- -1-----------My character lunges at their foe with his rapier
Narrative--------- -2-----------"I shall avenge my comrades!" Fredrick shouts as he fiercely wields his rapier and aims for the villain's heart
Note: Lower Difficulties are better. Difficulty numbers range from 6 to 27 with an average task having a Difficulty of 12 and most players will roll 2d6 and add between 6 and 14 (although potentially -4 to 17)
  Bear in mind that a descriptive or narrative explanation of what your character is doing does not have to be original or flowery. It can be a creative re-wording of a line form a movie, book or any source. As long as it is descriptive, in genre and in character it will add to the story being told.

  I just don;t know if it is enough to encourage casual gamers to put it out there, what do you think?

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

Eek! OK, that would work, but realize that your examples equate to these underlying meanings:

Normal         +0   [A "weak" example of an Actor Stance statement.]
Descriptive   -1   [A better-quality example, but now in Author Stance.]
Narrative     -2   [The epitome of quality, which is most firmly Author Stance.]

Maybe that's what you want... but your design would be penalizing Actor Stance in narrativist play. That seems odd to me, but perhaps that's your main point: maybe you want the players to drop any sort of direct association with their characters. Non-reinforcement of Actor Stance would certainly make players veer to Author Stance.

I thought your focus was more on descriptive richness, nuances, or even Directorial credability awards to clever ideas/maneuvers (see the example of player-declared in-scene props in Exalted).

Perhaps you should clarify what you want players to do to get ahead (i.e. don't give a handful of examples of how to "play right," but define what "right" means at the core). Do you want folks to:
1) Be florid and eloquent?
2) Be immersive and "true" to the game world and its motifs?
3) Take charge of describing more of the game world details?
4) Describe character actions in compound sentences, with lines of dialogue and heavy use of adjectives and adverbs?
5) Act-out their characters' actions, shouting or whispering for full effect?
6) Other behaviors?

You see why we ask? See how a "simple question" can degenerate into defining "simple"... then "question"? :-)

Let us know more (consider a Power 19) and I am sure we can spit-ball even more Techniques to accomplish... err, whatever it is you want the players to be doing;
David

[Shreyas Sampat]

David,

I realise that you don't agree with your interpretation of my post, but that is not really a reason to revile it. Furthermore, it is incorrect!

"Reward desired narration" is not identical to "patting the players on the head for every narrative utterance--no matter how puerile or off-track"; in fact, it is quite strongly different.

[dindenver]

Hi!

Note: Lower Difficulties are better. Difficulty numbers range from 6 to 27 with an average task having a Difficulty of 12 and most players will roll 2d6 and add between 6 and 14 (although potentially -4 to 17)

I am generally against penalizing players. A "-1" to difficulty makes it easier to succeed. So, ideally, the bonus would encourage players to "author" their characters with a littlre more flair.
  I was thikning of making the best level of description give a bonus of -1 per player that thinks it was good.
  Do you think that would be better or owrse than a GM award of -2?

[Shreyas Sampat]

I was thikning of making the best level of description give a bonus of -1 per player that thinks it was good.
Do you think that would be better or owrse than a GM award of -2?

This is, at one level, similar to Fanmail, which is very successful.