Hi -

I've lurked a lot, and have decided to take the plunge and actually
ask for an opinion on something.

I used to be quite the simulationist, and now I'm going to be
running a series of narrativist scenarios which will take several weeks to
complete.

I've read Ron's articles about the subect of GNS, and found them quite
helpful. Now, after many years of being away from gaming, I've
hooked up with a group and I'm going to be running again in two
short weeks.

I'm running a narrativist Mafia Family scenario, which will evolve
into COC style horror.

I'll be using my own homebrew mechanic, which I've already explained
to the fellas. Since it is so simple, it literally took only 5-10 minutes to
explain the whole thing. (Including how character generation works)

So here's what I think I've got going for me:

1. A love of both gangsters and Lovecraft. (Being very knowlegable of
both)

2. A fertile imagination, and the ability to create memorable and
believable characters.

3. A great group of fellas to game with.

4. A rules lite mechanic, that easily handles most tasks with a single
roll.

5. Experience at being a GM, albeit long ago.

Here's what has been tough for me:

1. Formerly being a hard core simulationist, and being new to
narrativism.

2. Resisting the temptation to over engineer the scenario. (Like
writing out every character down to the guy who sells hotdogs
on the corner)

3. Letting the players shape the evolving story, even if they send the
overarching story off in a direction I didn't expect.

4. Sweating the fact that I don't have hand outs, character sketches,
and long lists of rules for them to peruse.

Sooo... sorry for the long winded post, but throw me a bone here:
Help me overcome my jitters by pointing out any pitfalls I might
not be aware of. I would appreciate any tips you could throw my way.

D.O.C.

The biggest stumble I had when learning the narrativist approach was giving up the idea that I as GM was the primary author of the story. After two years playing games which support narrativist play, I have learned a few things.

I'm not going to say this advice works for all narrativist designs, but it works with The Riddle of Steel, Trollbabe, and Sorcerer:

1) Provide a setting rich in inherent conflict, but have no overall story in mind.

2) Let the players develop their own threads and find or insert what they're interested in.

3) Start weaving the threads together. At some point, an overall plot that involves them all will suggest itself. Go with that.

BTW, you might want to start with some short shot games to shake out old habits - InSpectres, Trollbabe, and the Pool are affordable choices.

Welcome to the Forge.

Dreams_of_Cats wrote: I'm running a narrativist Mafia Family scenario, which will evolve into COC style horror.

What's up D.o.C.?

(I know...I'm sorry I couldn't resist. What is your real name?)

When Alan references having a conflict rich setting it does involve having a lot of npc's out there...you should make up a bunch interesting ones and make sure that they aren't just hanging around, but that they are in action in a situation. They're out for something or in conflict. More than that, most of them should want the PC's to be involved somehow. This makes the characterts very 'sticky' and you can see which ones your players are attracted to. You're going to end up playing them like PC's a lot. Don't push the NPC's on them, if the players aren't interested, let that NPC be a minor one and just thow another one. Some will stick.

You might consider having the characters make up some npcs that are connected to their characters and include them. Not full blown write ups necessarily but quick sketches of a sentence or three.

Take a look at what the players create as characters and what they say during creation. These will be the clearest signals you have about what they think is cool about the setting or what they are intersted in. Cater to that.

regards,

Trevis

Ian Charvill wrote: Welcome to the Forge.

Dreams_of_Cats wrote: I'm running a narrativist Mafia Family scenario, which will evolve into COC style horror.

Two quick questions:

What triggers the evolution?

Do the players already know the evolution will occur?

Dreams_of_Cats wrote: It could be said I shouldn't have tipped my hand, but I felt they needed
to know at least that much. It's my first time running with them. I need
to establish some street cred.

Joshua,

I'd like to clarify your point about openness and co-authoring.

In the 'post Season 7' Buffy game I'm running, the starting point for most of the players is that they are members of a division of the Slayer's Council. However, one of the other major power blocks is a bunch of new Slayers who think they should be running things.

I had intended for these new Slayers to be a conspiracy - that is, I would reveal them or they would discovered by the players.

In the set-up phase of the game, how would you present this knowledge to the players and how would you want them to use it? Or to keep it on-topic, what advantages do you see to Dreamofcats keying the players in to the Lovecraft reveal?

Cheers,
Steve

Well, now it's probably going to sound like I'm contradicting myself, but...

Me? I'd spring them on the players later in the run of sessions. I wouldn't include info about them in the set-up.

The difference is the conspiracy wouldn't be a mystery for the players to figure out. The conspiracy would be a big Bang. Bam! Now there's this conspiracy of Slayers. What are you going to do about it? And anything the players do, any action they choose to resolve the issue of conspiratorial Slayers, is fine. They can try to kill them, they can ally with them, they can ignore them.

No mysteries, just Bangs.

Hello Steve,

I'm not Joshua but I'd like to throw my two cents in here. First, I'd like to point out that there's a BIG difference between the Mafia + Lovecraft concept and the Slayer conspiracy concept. In the one case we have a situation that evolves from one set of expectations into another set of expectations. If I was told that "hey, we're going to play the Godfather RPG!" and then half way through stuff starts going all weird and lovecraft I'd feel cheated because I built my character and my personal expectations around dealing with mafia issues not scholarly horror issues. In the other case, Slayers are not outside my expectations in a Buffy game.

Then there's the issue of how a mystery is dealt with. If solving of the mystery by the PLAYERS is the point of play then yes, that's pretty antithetical to Narrativism. BUT I don't think that means that the players need be in on the answer to every mystery. It's just that the clues leading to the solution need to be:

1) Readily available when the PCs go for them. This often means improvising clues from sources you hadn't originally thought of but seem to make sense to the players and revealing clues out of any expected order up to and including the whole solution in one go.

2) Require meaningful choice at each step. I.E. Not just be a puzzle piece to fit in with the other clues but requires here and now decision making on the part of the players.

For example I've seen a LOT of scenarios structured this way.

Encounter A in which the PCs find out that the killer is supernaturally strong from colorful NPC X.

Encounter B in which the PCs find out that there is more than one killer from colorful NPC Y.

Encounter C in which the PC s find out that all the killers are female from colorful NPC Z.

Usually such scenarios explicitly state that further investigation after each encouter should be allowed for the sake of "roleplaying" but that no further information should be revealed. They then say something like, "After encounters A B and C the players should figure out that they're dealing with a rival Slayer gang." And NOW the choice kicks in.

A better way to look at it is in chunks that require decisive meaningful action. So right away start out with the reveal that someone out there seems to be fighting evil but through means that may be questionable, counter to our beliefs or just plain outside our authority. Bam, right there is a meaningful choice. What do we do about it? Find them and recruit them? Kill them? Try to make contact but respect their anonymity?

From there all other aspects of the mystery should be revealed relatively quickly and in whatever order things play out in. Maybe the players catch one of these Slayers in the act, now they know it's a female human and not a demon. That complicates things. They might capture her and discover, "Oh god she's a Slayer."

BAM! Another crime is commited while the PCs have her in custody! What wait, she's not working alone? What do we do now? Torture our potential ally for information? Let her go and follow her?

Captured another one and guess what she's a Slayer too! Okay, a pair of rogue Slayers. What was that? ANOTHER instance? Oh, god there's a whole ARMY out there operating outside our control!

You see, at each stage of the mystery the PCs had to make real choices with each level of "reveal" complicating that decision making process. And my example flow is just ONE way it could go. Maybe the players do something completely different from the start and so things get revealed or played out in a different order with different choices leading to different consequences.

Does that make sense?

Jesse

joshua neff wrote:

Dreams_of_Cats wrote: It could be said I shouldn't have tipped my hand, but I felt they needed
to know at least that much. It's my first time running with them. I need
to establish some street cred.

There's nothing wrong with tipping your hand. In fact, it's generally considered that with narrativist games, tipping your hand is essential.

See, mysteries--in the sense of "there's stuff the players don't know, but the GM does, & the players have to figure it out"--don't work all that well in narrativist games. That's not to say the players have to know everything that's going on. But neither does the GM....

But in narrativist games, the GM is very definitely not the author. The entire group is the author.

So, tip your hand. Let them see the cards that are important in co-authoring the story.

jburneko wrote:
For example I've seen a LOT of scenarios structured this way.

Encounter A in which the PCs find out that the killer is supernaturally strong from colorful NPC X.

Encounter B in which the PCs find out that there is more than one killer from colorful NPC Y.

Encounter C in which the PC s find out that all the killers are female from colorful NPC Z.

And now, the inevitable next question.. Have you got a relationship map drawn up?

Dreams_of_Cats wrote: I see your point - there is a little mystery in the center of the thing. How and if they solve it is up to them. It's not essential that they become sleuths, as they all want to go at it the way gangsters would: The hard way. So in the end, we'll see if the things from beyond have met their match in the Scarfino family. ... I frankly don't know how they are going to do it. I have some ideas, but they are just going to have to be creative. I surrender complete control in that respect. They even have the option of getting wiped out to a man.

pete_darby wrote: And now, the inevitable next question.. Have you got a relationship map drawn up?

>>>Snipping all sorts of useful stuff<<<

clehrich wrote: I confess right up front that I've never quite mastered GNS terminology, so if I'm misreading Narrativism somebody should certainly let me know!

If you're going to do a mystery in Narrativism, as I see it, the difficulty is avoiding the Force. You probably need to force on them that there is a mystery, but you can't really predetermine that solving it matters. You've noted that you can't predetermine the answer to the mystery, which would be definitely a force, but I think you have to be ready to roll with it if the players decide that solving the mystery isn't important. That needs to be a genuine option.

Chris Lehrich

I've found that, in narrativist play, the GM and players can establish an understanding about certain things before play begins. The GM can take a leadership role and suggest overall elements of genre, setting, and situation.

So for example, in one game, the GM suggested we play "Imperium Confidential." By understanding and agreeing to this, players accepted that they would be working to create a hard boiled mystery set in ancient Rome. In play, the players did cooperate with the concept and develope it.

From my own experiences as GM, I would say: set out the evidence of wrong-doing (bodies and such) and maybe have a few solutions in mind, but don't be fixed to particular one, just let the solution ideas guide the creation of clues. Players too may create clues and these may change things. Finally, once play is underway, the GM should be alert for threads, which engage the players, and that may be inter-related and woven tighter until a climax occurs. Essentially, the GM should leave the identity of the perpetrator undecided until the player's actions decide it.