[AG&G] Novices at narrativism

[colin roald]

So it's been more than a year since I've actually managed to play in a role-playing game.  The problem hasn't been lack of interest so much as lack of time -- in particular, lack of GM.  It's hard enough finding people willing to commit to showing up at a regular time every week, but the extra prep work demanded of the GM always becomes a showstopper for anything but explicitly short-run games.

This is why, of all the fascinating-looking games people are excited about here, the one I actually pulled a group together to play was Vincent Baker's "Art, Grace, and Guts", which doesn't even exist as anything more than a few terse playtest docs.

http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=196

The wonderful-if-we-can-make-it-work idea is that we make up the entire adventure on the spot, around the play table, starting from a random roll on the Clinton Oracle -- no GM prep, because everything from characters to setting to goals is decided based on the random seeds.

We got:
1. An unsavory treasure-seeker, with an honest map.
2. A secret order of warrior-mystics, defending their relics.
3. The underclerk of the temple of some lesser cult.
4. The head of a high war-captain, in a carved wooden cask.

The first step was to decide what the characters would be.  There were four of us around the table, so we made up five characters -- I thought I had read somewhere in Vincent's docs that it should be N+1, but now I can't find that.  Next time I'll be inclined to call for N, since as GM I had some difficulty managing the conflicts of two characters under my control.  I know the GM characters' conflicts are supposed to be against the PCs, but after character selection I ended up with the treasure-seeker AND one of the leaders of the warrior-mystics, and conflict between those two is pretty much demanded by the scenario.

For the record, the players and characters ended up as:

J - the Underclerk, a nebbishy bureaucrat with terrifyingly effective skills at "Quoting Regulations" and "Suppressing Magic".  Unfortunately, we didn't get to see how that second one would work out in practice.
M - the Captain of an order of something like Knights Templar.  Leadership of the warrior-mystics was a Specialization that allowed to add Art, I think, whenever his guards were helping out.
A - the Descendent of the War-captain of the relic
GM1 - the Treasure-hunter, whose map was a Specialization allowing him to add Art to any conflict involving sneaking around the castle.
GM2 - the Prophetess of the Knights Templar, who had possession of the Head.   The Head was a Specialization allowing Prophecy, Commanding the Weak, and something else I forget.  The counter-challenge was The Head Deceives You.

Conflicts were: 
The Treasure-hunter wants to steal the Head, and also to humiliate his half-brother the Captain.  As GM declaring the first conflict, I was sort of pleased with myself for asserting the blood relationship, which hadn't been mentioned until that point.
The Underclerk wants to recover the Map, which has been stolen from his order.
The Captain wants to protect the Head, and also to supplant the Prophetess as leader of the order.
The Descendent wants to recover the Head of his ancestor, and also to Marry someone Suitable.
The Prophetess wants to keep the Head, and also ... hm.   um.   Looking at all the conflicts declared so far, it seemed like someone wanted something from everyone so far except the Underclerk.  But what could the Prophetess possibly want from that little dweeb?  We pondered this for a few minutes, but when I saw it it seemed perfect:  "The Head has prophesied that she must have his child, to gain Great Power!"

All in all, seemed a promising start.  Running it was medium successful. 

First, a few rules questions.  We had some confusion over how to decide what dice to roll.  For instance, we had a conflict where the Captain wanted to seize the Underclerk, and rolled I think Exerting Myself for combat.  In response, the Underclerk declared "I talk him out of it", and rolled Art for Confuse with Regulations.  That seemed amusing and reasonable, so we decided it was within the spirit of the game and let him go for it.   But it did leave us in the situation where there seemed never really to be any constraint on what dice a player chose to roll in response to a challenge.  Almost every challenge ended up being the two characters' best stats against each other.

Second, we had a chase between the Captain and the Treasure-hunter in the cellars.  The Captain was using his Guards specialiation to help, if I recall correctly, and the Treasure-hunter was using his Map to get away.  At one point the Captain got the advantage, so as the Treasure-hunter I narrated a stumble over clutter in the hall, and the Captain has a hand on his jacket.  For the next round, my intention as the Treasure-hunter was, "punch my half-brother in the face and take off again," at which point we started wondering if he should get to roll the Map specialization dice anymore.  I think I did, on the house interpretation that in a conflict you just keep rolling whatever dice you started the conflict with.  That seemed simplest, but it does leave a question about conflicts that shift between social and violent in midflow.  The selection of dice to roll in this game appears to be only kind of loosely connected to what action eventually happens -- I'm not sure if that's what Vincent intends, or if that's just my misreading of the unpolished playtest draft we were working from.

Third, we had a situation where the Captain and the Underclerk were both wandering around the castle looking for the Treasure-hunter.   I suppose we could have rolled conflicts of Hide vs Find endeavours, but it seemed dramatically necessary that both come across him, so as GM I decided it was my right to pick who found him first and frame the scene.  The playtest docs don't seem to say anything about scene framing rights -- I presume that's to be in the promised but un-written "GM player's skill" doc.

In hindsight, the Underclerk's Interest was too easy.  Once he was in the same scene as the Treasure-hunter, all he had to do was declare a conflict of "I get the map away from him," and the dice decided if he succeeded.  He did, and then the character had completed his objectives for the chapter and started negotiating about leaving the castle, while the situation between the other four characters was hardly half resolved.  It was getting late, so we ended up callling the end of the session at that point, it felt like maybe halfway through the chapter.  The question is, what do we do next week?  My inclination is to let the Underclerk go, and give the player something else to play (maybe the Treasure-hunter).  This means the Prophetess has missed her chance at the clerk, and the sort of promising triangular relationship between the Prophetess, the Clerk, and the Descendent  collapses (we were getting a bit of sex-farce mileage out of that one).

I believe we ended the evening with every character on the We Owe list exactly once, a nice balance.  Only once during the evening did anyone cross off a name for an advantage die.

I called this post "Novices at narrativism" because we all are, really.  A couple of us had played several sessions of Sorcerer with mixed success, but really for all of us this game is an experiment with an unfamiliar playing style.   One session is really too early to make any kind of real judgement, but my early reaction is mixed.  I like empowering the players.  I like being able to make up secret passages into the Prophetess' bedroom whenever one would be useful.  I'm more wobbly about the conflict resolution scheme, but I think that was a combination of our unfamiliarity with a new system and sketchy pre-release rules.  But I feel vaguely unsatisfied with the plot.  I'm not sure I can see what outcome between the characters might leave me feeling like we'd told any kind of real story.  And I've got a vague feeling like we're standing maybe at arm's length from these characters.  People haven't really invested in "this is my guy," myself included maybe even moreso.  I don't get the traditional Sim GM's reward of "this is my world", and juggling two leftover characters, I don't really identify with them. 

That's just my reactions after a first session.  We're going to keep playing at least a few more times, to see how it goes.

[Mike Holmes]

One thing to keep in mind is that this "unfamiliar playing style" is nothing of the sort. You've been doing it all your RPG playing carreers, though potentially only in small amounts. That is, have you never had a character who faced a moral dilemma in play where you made your decision of what to do not on what was tactically sound, but what you felt was more interesting to have the character do? You have? Then you've played narrativism (or, technically atomic narrativism or something like that).

The point is that you shouldn't be flailing about for something unusual feeling. When you're doing narrativism it's quite as natural as competing in gamism. So, basically, quit trying so hard and just play the game. It'll happen on it's own.

Mike

[colin roald]

The point is that you shouldn't be flailing about for something unusual feeling. When you're doing narrativism it's quite as natural as competing in gamism. So, basically, quit trying so hard and just play the game. It'll happen on it's own.

Hm.  I wouldn't say I felt like I was flailing.  I'm just not completely satisfied with how the session turned out, and was trying to talk aloud through figuring out why. 

I do feel like there are Nar GM skills different from the Sim GM skills I'm practiced in, that I am working on learning -- it's more than just "let it happen on its own".  For example, one would be recognizing when a player has chosen good goals/interests for his character -- that sort of thing doesn't come up much in Call of Cthulhu.

[charles ferguson]

Colin I hear you, man.

I played a DitV game for the first time recently, and just GMd my 3rd playtest session to TOTSG, which is turning out to be kind of a Nar game. And I'v discovered that playing & GM'ing Nar is using different muscles. I havn't RP'd for a long time (like 20 yrs long) so yeah, I'm real rusty. Even so. I've read about Nar for years now, but doing it? It's hard man, not the oh-I-can't-do-this-hard but trying to brush your teeth left-handed hard. Like you said, I'm trying to use skills that havn't been conciously used before in this context, and things aren't where I think they'll be. Part is I think that my brain has already laid down those tracks in a completely different direction. Part is definitely that we learn by doing, & I haven't done before.

I find the HeroQuest forum here excellent for practical advice that's general enough to be applicable to my situation (anything there by Mike Holmes is pretty well always gold). Ron's posts in Sorcerer likewise, when they're of a general nature. Also Chris Chinn's articles if you don't know them already on flag framing and conflict webs.

good luck, man.

[Mike Holmes]

I may be over-reacting. But what I've seen in the past is that some people think that they've missed the mark when they're actually hitting it pretty hard.

You're both correct, of course, that there are skills to learn and hone here. All I'm saying is that you already have enough to do OK, improving these skills will only make play better than OK.

Mike

[lumpley]

Colin, how long did you play? It sounds like a fine start to me, if you played for under two hours.

The GM has insane scene framing power, with exclusive say. If you aren't comfy framing scenes aggressively, it's a skill to practice, and it'll feel odd for a few sessions. That's okay, just practice. For "aggressively," read "just the way you want 'em." You can be all like, "know what I want? I want a conversation over beer between the captain and the high priestess. Go!" "Okay, while you're picking up those dice, let's see where Mitch's character is. Mitch?"

It may take some attention for you to realize that you do have interests, tastes and desires about what scenes you want, when. As GM, chase those scenes.

Does this make sense to you? Follow the energy of your group. If it does, do that. If it doesn't, ignore please.

The GM also has lots of power to create and own the world. You should be thinking of the game world as a real place that's your responsibility to show. You don't get to decide events in the game yourself, the way you would GMing a normal rpg, but you still get to make and invest in the world. Better for you to treat NPCs as a casual investment and the world as a serious one.

I'm about to post new specialization rules - try them next time.

Oh! For next time, don't pick up this chapter where it left off. Call it a finished chapter even though it cut off in the middle; that's fine.

Here's the rule about cutting off chapters in the middle: Add the circumstances at the end of the chapter to the oracle.

So I can't tell the state of things at the end of your chapter from your writeup, but you might add "the high priestess, pursuing the underclerk's attention" and "the descendent of the war-captain, pursuing his ancestor's head" or whatever.

That way, in the future - maybe even for the very next session, but maybe not - the player whose character's owed can choose those to be in, if he wants.

But for next time you play, just go with whoever's at the top of the owe list, have that player choose an element, and roll 3 new ones, like the rules say.

If I've missed anything, or if any of this doesn't make sense, or whatever, ask!

-Vincent

[colin roald]

We took some time explaining rules, and then went through making up the scenario (which was way fun), then probably played it for 90 minutes or so.  It wasn't that long -- the problem was that the Underclerk accomplished his objective really quickly, before most of the others had really gotten started.

I think I did okay at scene framing.  On reflection after posting here and talking with players, I think what missed was putting any attention into the setting.  We were pretty focused on the conflicts, which is fine, but it tricked me into forgetting entirely about scene-setting -- all the "you're in a tall audience hall hung with ancient banners of the victories of the Knights" sort of Colour.  I think the lack of that is what left me feeling dissatisfied.

I do still have a couple questions:

1.  Do GM characters go on the "we owe" list?  I thought I read somewhere that they didn't, but I can no longer find whatever I'm thinking of.

2.  We were doing a chase scene combat, and we ended a round with the captain gaining an advantage by grabbing hold of the treasure-hunter's coat.  We pick up and re-roll the dice, and the treasure-hunter responds with a challenge of "I knee him in the groin".  Which was awesome in the story, but suddenly took us aback, because he'd rolled his Running Away dice, not his Kneeing in the Groin dice, and he had the Map specialization that made sense to add to one of those but not the other.  Should he have changed dice if he was going to shift intentions like that?  Should he not have been allowed to declare that challenge, because it wasn't in scope of the dice he was rolling?   Or was it just fine, and once you're in a combat you just keep rolling whatever you started with, no matter where it goes?   The rule for new rounds says:  "The conflict continues into a new round. We both pick up and reroll our dice, but because of your character's advantage, you get to add a d6 with pips - an advantage die - to the stat dice in your hand."   Nothing about changing dice, so we went with the third option.

[lumpley]

1. GM characters never go on the owe list.

2. Right. Roll and reroll the same dice straight through to the end.

-Vincent