Mechanisms for Player Narration

[Nicolas Crost]

Hi there. This is my first post so... be gentle. :)

I have recently started playing Donjon with my group and we really liked the way it worked. Basically it forces the player to assume author stance (or is it director?) and narrate. Well I used it to force narration (Player: I roll "looking around". What do I see? GM: Well, what DO you see?). The only problem was, that sometime things started to get a little incoherent.
So what I am looking for is a mechanism for challenging facts and one to encourage the stating of facts that fit the story and/or the characters.

I was thinking about the following: Every player (including the GM) gets a "narrative influence" score and some topics / topoi (well you can see where this is borrowed from...) they would like to have in the story.
1. Whenever a player narrates a fact belonging to one of the other players topoi, they get one point of narrative influence.
2. Whenever someone doesn´t like a stated fact, he can challenge it by spending a point of influence, thereby forcing the stating player to use a point to defend his fact. The resulting challenge would be solved by some kind of contest of narrative influence.
3. There might be other uses for narrative influence.

What I would hope these mechanisms to achieve is that players start to co-author the story, that everyone can challenge facts they absolutely don´t want in the story, that the story gets more coherent by focusing on the topics stated by all players and that the Gm gets to state some topics, but is not in a fundamentally different position from the players when it comes to challenging facts. And all of that without going all Universalis (which is not bad, but I wanted to retain a bit more of the "classical" RPG structure).

What do you think? Is the goal of player narration even worthwhile? How could it be handled better or more elegantly?

I would really appreciate your feedback.

Nicolas

[Hunter Logan]

I think mechanisms for narration are worthwhile. They're a good way to facilitate power sharing between players and the GM. The key may be to provide useful examples of the mechanic, demonstrating its expected use and any limitations.

[Roy]

Hi, Nicolas.  Welcome to the Forge!

The only problem was, that sometime things started to get a little incoherent.

Can you give an example of this?  

Before you go to the trouble of building a challenge mechanic, have you tried addressing this through a social contract (an agreement between players that state what is acceptable to the group)?  I think the social contract is a very important part of playing together, but it's often absent or neglected.

The other thing to keep in mind is that some players feel put on the spot when they're forced to narrate.  Some players even suffer from a form of role-playing stage fright where they just freeze up.  

As far as challenging a stated fact, my group goes with "majority rules" as long as it's setting appropriate.  The GM is the "Keeper of the Holy Setting Grail".  It works well for us because we've agreed upon it in the social contract.

Roy
roypenrod123@yahoo.com

[Mike Holmes]

Sounds pretty straightforward to me.

By player narration, you mean director stance narration here. That is, all players narrate some of their own characters actions, and as such "player narration" is something that occurs in all games. What you mean is player narration that covers things that are usually the specific purview of the GM in traditional games. Which I, of course, wholeheartedly endorse. It's not for every game, but if that's your goal, more power to you.

As for elegance, I think you've got the currency at the minimum complexity already for a mechanical solution. One for one exchanges. To get any simpler you have to go freeform with it. Which is possible, but lacks structure and balance. Seems pretty good where you have it.

This all assumes simple bidding, however.

The resulting challenge would be solved by some kind of contest of narrative influence.

This is a bit vague, however, and will need specifying before we can really determine if it'll all work.

Note that I am all for complicating things by having such a currency be used for other things as well. But be careful what you include. Whatever you do add will likely have large effects on the value of the currency and what it gets used for, or may in fact be ineffective.


Roy's got some good points. Make it optional if at all possible to narrate if possible, and have alternate uses that are just as fun.

Mike

[Nicolas Crost]

First of all, thanks for the feedback.

Why I was thinking about some kind of challange machanism for the donjon-type of stating facts is that at some point players (in my group) did state facts that not everyone (in- or excluding the GM) fully approved of. And while you could solve this by social contract alone I feel that it would be nicer to have some mechanism that 1. lets the majority overrule a single "wrongdoer" by sheer numbers but 2. might let someone slip by a fact he would prefer by "playing by the rules" for some time.

So I thought that some narrative influence score could be increased by giving other players what they want (i.e. by adressing their topoi) and later on that score could be use to push some facts you liked even against some opposition. And I like Universalis too, with influence being attached to coins and thereby satisfying the little gamist in me.

So what I was thinking as a structure for stating facts is the following:
1. Someone rolls successes. Those might be used for stating facts or perhaps for use in later rolls as in Donjon (don´t want to force people to much)
2. Stating of facts. The player gets to tentatively stat his facts. In this phase the other players (including the GM) can give suggestions or even threaten to challenge the facts.
3. Challenge. Players may challence the stated facts. It is possible to team up here. Every participating player (including the sating one) have to pay one point of narrative influence.
4. Resolution. Compare narrative influence. This might be a Donjon-like check with one die per point of influence or simply having each side roll one die and add their sum of influence. The winning side get to state the facts.
5. Repeat as necessary. (don´t know about this one yet) The new facts might be challenged again by paying influence. The same set of facts may only be challenged once
5. Final stating of facts. After no challenges are used any more, the facts become in-game reality.
6. The same facts may not be stated again in the same way in the same situation. (well this falls back on interpretation)

So what you have here is a layered procedure. Point 2 would encompass (? bad english?) the social contract. If everybody is allright with the facts and/or compromises, no challenge is necessary. Especially players with a little different tastes might slip some facts by the majority if they are willing to invest enough influence.

One more idea: The GM does not have to be fundamentally different using this procedure for stating facts. One could let players challenge GM stated facts the same way as player stated ones. By giving the GM more narrative influence (or a higher threshold of influence), some bonus dice during Resolution and the standard GM ability to state facts without having to have rolled successes one would give the GM more power over the story as a whole. He would be able to state facts in spite of one (or even more) players not liking them. But if the whole group doesn´t like the plot, he can´t get away with it. And it would be an incentive for the GM to adress the players topoi and gain narrative influence himself.

Well that got rather longish. Thoughts (I guess _my_ brain is empty now)?

Nicolas

[W. Don]

The process in your latest post seems sound, Nicholas. I'm just a teensy bit worried about just how much debate it might entail, which might then take a sizable chunk off the actual roleplaying time (or would you consider the debate to part of the actual roleplaying/in-game time?). I like that there's some group veto rule -- that should curb the debate a bit. It would be interesting, I think, to actually test it out and see what happens.

Quick idea. About those metagame narrative points, if you're still going with them: How about instead of giving the players a set number of "influence points" they can gain them throughout the game whenever they roll high? Example: In-game (outside of the stating of facts section you've outline) whenever a character rolls a 10 on a d10 it results in whatever success they usually and in additon also gives them 2 influence points. When they roll a 9, they get 1 influence point. Something like that.

[Mike Holmes]

Don,

This sort of enumeration always makes the process seem more ponderous than it might be in play by incorporating all the possible steps. At least this is my experience. In many situations steps 3-5 get skipped entirely as people like what the player is coming up with. In which case, it's just like play of Donjon, say. On the occasions where there is a Challenge, then most times it's just kibitzing suggestions that the player works with. Again, this happens in a lot of games. Only if it gets to the formal Challenge does it require going to the extra mechanics. This is rarely needed because players know that it's possible to happen, and that's why things get worked out informally: nobody wants to take it to court and pay the court expenses.

And on those rare occasions when things do go to the formal Challenge, the system doesn't seem to be too hard to use. Just chuck in the dice you're willing to pay for and roll. (This all said, see below where I agree with you that the current system could get out of hand.)

I think that when Nicolas says "Group Veto" I think he's refering to Challenges. Basically if the group piles up on you, they can win with little cost to each.

And not to pick on you, but the problem with the system that you mention as a way of refreshing the pool is that it's entirely random. The only thing it encourages a player to do is to roll as often as possible. Which might not be something you want to encourage. With a GM, you have the opportunity to have these dice become a reward that can be given out to encourage very specific behaviors. Nicolas' method is cool because points are given out for players doing things that the others say that they like.

I also like that there's a GM in here to adjudicate when an action counts in terms of this so that players can't abuse it and accumulate huge pools. Nicolas, I'd recommend that the rule be that the player with the Topos and the GM both have to approve the die being given for a "visit" (sorry to use Ed's terms but they're really good).

On other subjects, I'd not refer to it as a score, but as a die pool. That way you're just recieving dice, and spending dice as you roll them in Challenges.

Also, does the GM participate in Challenges? Does he have a pool? Can he "visit"? Etc. Seems to be a good away of ensuring that he goes along with the players wishes.

What happens on ties? This can happen with the Donjon rolling system.

Big problem. If multiple people spend to overrule somebody by spending dice into one big pool to roll against him, who gets to determine the facts when that side wins? The first person to Challenge? That might be problematic, and encourage people to move on to mechanical Challenges early instead of remaining informal.

At first I was a little apprehensive about the whole Challenge as presented. That is, it seemed to me that players would merely see this as  a way to "steal" other players successes. And I think that's still true, but the more I imagine it, the more the idea grows on me. The problem is that it's somewhat a "use it or lose it" sort of resource. There's no other use for it than attacking or defending in Challenges. The only thing keeping players at all conservative on use of it is that they have to worry about their own successes being taken away.

This is fairly easy to combat, however, simply by making the dice pools low. If each die is precious then players will only resort to Challenge when it makes the most sense. This means that the GM has to be stingy with allowing rewards to be handed out, however. This is OK, however, as it encourages even more attention to good "visits", I think. Consider giving rewards on a one-per-scene sort of basis. Or maybe even on a session basis.

If you want to make rewards more frequent (and I can see how one might; I would), then perhaps rewards can be given as fractions of dice (fifths, tenths?).

If you give out full dice like candy, I suspect that Challenges will become very frequent, and Don's warning may become valid.

Just a few random thoughts.

Mike

[W. Don]

This sort of enumeration always makes the process seem more ponderous than it might be in play by incorporating all the possible steps ... only if it gets to the formal Challenge does it require going to the extra mechanics. This is rarely needed because players know that it's possible to happen... and on those rare occasions when things do go to the formal Challenge, the system doesn't seem to be too hard to use. Just chuck in the dice you're willing to pay for and roll.

I see how that one can go now: Some social contract action going on (kibbitzing, skipping of steps, frowning at absolutely absurd ideas, etc.) so that the issues are kept to a minimum and the process flows, plus a quick mechanic (ie: formal Challenge) to handle things when they do reach critical mass. Thanks for pointing it out.

...the problem with the system that you mention as a way of refreshing the pool is that it's entirely random. The only thing it encourages a player to do is to roll as often as possible. Which might not be something you want to encourage...

Aha! I knew I was on to something there (or rather wasn't ;o) The thing I've proposed only succeeds in connecting success (and thus more dice rolling) to narrative strength, which doesn't seem to address Brennan's needs here. (Methinks, I'd better watch out for this tendency in my own work.)

If you want to make rewards more frequent (and I can see how one might; I would), then perhaps rewards can be given as fractions of dice (fifths, tenths?).

Apart from fractions of dice, maybe even die-types (d4 to d6 to d8, etc.)? If they make sense of course (ie: assuming you will be adding all the rolled results up), and if it isn't too cumbersome for you.

- W.

[Nicolas Crost]

Mike,

I think you found a few things I still have to work out in the challange-system (ties, multiple people challenging). I´ll have to think about that over the weekend...

Some other points:

Nicolas' method is cool because points are given out for players doing things that the others say that they like.

Thanks. That was what I was thinking about. It encourages building stories everybody likes by using an in-game mechanic for feedback. And everybody has to state some topics they like, so this point (which is often neglected) is made clear beforehand.

Nicolas, I'd recommend that the rule be that the player with the Topos and the GM both have to approve the die being given for a "visit" (sorry to use Ed's terms but they're really good).

Good point. Saves much debating over whether a fact adresses a topos or not. Also I was thinking about limiting the possibility of gaining dice from a single topic to once per session for each player such as to encourage the visiting of different topics. It might even be good to limit it to a certain number of dice to be gained for visiting a single players topics. That way you would have to adress different players topics thereby hopefully making the session fun for everyone. Might lead to topic-jumping though.
Also I was thinking about limiting the size of the pool to avoid accumulating of giant pools. Something like the spiritual attributes in Riddle of Steel might be fine, with some limit (say 5-10) and the possibility to transform them into experience points (hero points, whatever). This might also counter the urge to just challenge for the fun of it, because you could spend your influence in some other way.

Also, does the GM participate in Challenges? Does he have a pool? Can he "visit"? Etc. Seems to be a good away of ensuring that he goes along with the players wishes.

Definitely. So he could also challenge to prevent the setting from falling apart and he would have a incentive to visit the players topics. If the group thinks so, he should be able to transform his influence dice into candy (paid for by the group). :)

I hope I´ll get to playtesting soon!

Nicolas