Yesterday, my 4 players and I had our first meeting to decide what game I'll be running for the next ~6 months. And lo, it was good. I do have a couple of questions down the bottom of this excessively long post. Apologies. =)

I've mostly run Storyteller games over the last 5 years, with a mattering of satisfying narrativist one-offs like a session of Puppetland and Over the Edge. With the ST games, I've been confused about how to prioritise story. I've had difficulties communicating to my players what I now understand to be 'protagonism'. And over the last year or so, I've started three games which lasted just a few sessions before expiring. Last autumn, I encountered the GNS essay.

So for the last 3 months, I've been discussing my players' priorities in RPGs on a mailing list I set up. It took weeks of exploration and debate, but we agreed we were all interested in story. Not so interested in puzzles. Interested in relationships with well-drawn NPCs. Not so interested in combat. It felt really good to concentrate on these topics, rather than 'genre' or even 'which game?'. The forums here helped a great deal.

I then took each player aside and asked them more involved questions about their likes and dislikes. By slowly adding terminology from the Forge, I realised that one player was strongly Sim and his idea of story resembled the camping trip anecdote. Once we knew that, I could approach him with a slightly different view of story creation, and we agreed he'd try it. Two of my players were intuitively Narrativist. One of those disliked being labelled as such - for him, labelling removes the 'magic'. And one last player eludes me, but is a little more casual with gaming than the rest of the players.

Our first meeting went very well. I presented some priorities from The Narrativist Mindset essay to my players, emphasising what no matter what setting we agreed to, techniques such as Fortune in the Middle, and emphasis on protagonism and collaborative creation of a story would be vital to my enjoyment of the game. And they were possible solutions to some of the problems we've been having. We agreed to try some of these strange, new things.

I was fascinated to see a couple of things emerge from the meeting. First of all, most of my players are drop-dead terrified of the idea of making their own setting from scratch (Sorceror was pushed as 'one of the games we might use to facilitate our exploration of narrativist techniques'). Three of the four players have been raised on a diet of Shadowrun and the World of Darkness series, and can't imagine not relying on sourcebooks and citybooks. The one player (the Simulationist) who was happy working on a setting is a little bit older, and was raised on D&D. Designing a setting from scratch just wasn't an option.

This really surprised me, as in previous games, I've had my players develop NPCs and locations during play, so I'm not sure what the difference is here. Design in play vs design at start?

As a GM, I feel my strengths are characterising NPCs and locations, so I was fascinated to hear another priority emerge - scenery. In a sense, the Color of the locations the characters would encounter. I hadn't realised I hadn't focused on this before; I'd just assumed I did a reasonable job.

After 3 hours of debate, it looks like we have two options: Sorceror and Exalted. Sorceror appeals to everyone who's read it, but designing a setting worries them (and I'm not 100% happy running it in a modern setting). We have some interesting concepts for sorcery and demons, such as 'what if the demons are angels?' which would certainly be worth exploring. That said, Exalted is the front runner. It has a strong setting people can relax into, a heroic (but not godlike) scale that appeals to the group, a system we're all familiar with, and lots of scope for premise/setting. We're more than likely to run Exalted now, andd then ease into Sorceror in about 6 months.

We'll be using Kickers. My players love the idea, it made perfect sense to them (Bruce Willis just wants to protect his wife in Die Hard etc). I probably won't get a chance to use relationship maps this time round, as the PCs will probably roam the world a bit, but I'll likely present situations rather than scenarios, so that's something.

I'm hoping to promote Fortune-in-the-Middle, giving players the opportunity to narrate both their own successes and failures. The skill system is fairly limited - 25 skills - which will still allow for general actions to be declared, and general results to be described, I think. Am I missing something, or is FitM very incompatable with the ST system?

Exalted supports 'stunts' - suitably cinematic actions give a small dice bonus and also return magic points, so I'm thinking of ditching the dice bonus (which I can't see working well with FitM, despite a thread on the subject).

There's a few other narrative bits and bobs (like deciding on the premise), which I'll cover in future posts, as and when they happen.

Thanks for all your help. You're like little co-GMs sitting on my shoulder.

Joe.

Joe Murphy (Broin) wrote:
This really surprised me, as in previous games, I've had my players develop NPCs and locations during play, so I'm not sure what the difference is here. Design in play vs design at start?

Joe Murphy (Broin) wrote:
I was fascinated to see a couple of things emerge from the meeting. First of all, most of my players are drop-dead terrified of the idea of making their own setting from scratch (Sorceror was pushed as 'one of the games we might use to facilitate our exploration of narrativist techniques'). Three of the four players have been raised on a diet of Shadowrun and the World of Darkness series, and can't imagine not relying on sourcebooks and citybooks. The one player (the Simulationist) who was happy working on a setting is a little bit older, and was raised on D&D. Designing a setting from scratch just wasn't an option.

This really surprised me, as in previous games, I've had my players develop NPCs and locations during play, so I'm not sure what the difference is here. Design in play vs design at start?

Joe Murphy (Broin) wrote:
Sorceror appeals to everyone who's read it, but designing a setting worries them (and I'm not 100% happy running it in a modern setting).

I agree with Gareth that Creation has a totally different feel than Exploration. In each you have discovery, but in creation you discover something internal, and in exploration you discover something external. The difference between Michelangelo and Columbus. One way to handle it is to have the Michelangelos create stuff for the Columbuses to explore.

Anyhow, I think it's pretty easy to use FitM for any resolution system. To get FitM you simply have to use a non-traditional declaration of intent. So, in D&D, the player, instead of saying "I chop his head off." (which won't work anyhow, D&D is a prime candidate for FitM) the player says, I am attacking with my sword (which actually happens a lot in D&D anyhow). The difference then is that after the dice are rolled and damage is determined, the player simply descibes the result. Lets say the player rolled 3 points of damage on an ogre. The player considers the amount of damage as compared to the ccreatures likely total of hits and says, "The tip of Ragnar's blade draws a thin red line across the ogre's belly, enraging it." Which sounds cool, and makes Ragnar's conflict with the ogre more relevant. On a miss the player might say, "Ragnar shifts about staying out of the ogre's reach looking for an opening." Which sounds much cooler than the traditional, "Ragnar swings and misses" whigh makes mighty Ragnar look like a pansy after the fifth miss in a row.

How do you intend to keep the Simmy mechanics from messing with the players' focusing on the story? Other than FitM and relationship maps? What's the Narrative Premise that keeps the characters moving and participating in creating the story? Does Exalted present enough of one (If so, what is it; something about power and duty, IIRC)? Perhaps you'd want to make some new and extra mechanic to keep the players on that premise. Or one you could tweak to make it more Narrativist?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:
I agree with Gareth that Creation has a totally different feel than Exploration. In each you have discovery, but in creation you discover something internal, and in exploration you discover something external. The difference between Michelangelo and Columbus. One way to handle it is to have the Michelangelos create stuff for the Columbuses to explore.

How do you intend to keep the Simmy mechanics from messing with the players' focusing on the story? Other than FitM and relationship maps? What's the Narrative Premise that keeps the characters moving and participating in creating the story? Does Exalted present enough of one (If so, what is it; something about power and duty, IIRC)? Perhaps you'd want to make some new and extra mechanic to keep the players on that premise. Or one you could tweak to make it more Narrativist?

Joe Murphy (Broin) wrote:
I think Andy explained this well, though. He wants the created world to feel solid and consistently 'real', and for our narrativist players, that's only one of many priorities, along with dramatic resonance, for example. I suppose he's worried we might focus on 'cool' settings, without being certain that, say, there are enough farmers to support the populace, or a solid reason why a certain country is democratic rather than feudal.

There's references to various things the Deathknights can do, for instance, which indicate that the writers have fleshed them out to a much greater degree than we see in the book. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that there's 10-20 times the amount of source material in existence than has been published so far, to say nothing of the 100 time that which has been discarded because it didn't fit.

Certainly if WW was creating style bibles we wouldn't have 3rd editions, now would we? :P A lot more background work did go into Exalted than the other games, simply because it didn't have a cultural reference to come off of. Whereas Ann Rice gives you the feel of Vampire, and many new agey books can help you with Mage, Exalted is a reality that no one has a reference on.

This has always been the hardest part for me to really get a hook on the background of Exalted. It seems like a lot of nifty ideas got put together, but no overall theme to hold it. Unlike the Final Fantasy games which have traditionally played on a unifying theme for its vast array of characters, Exile hasn't set up an immediate conflict, which is something that WW has traditionally been very good at. Certainly there's room for lots of cool beasties and undead monsters, but fighting isn' t the same as conflict.

I'll be very interested to see what Premise you go with, and how well it runs in the Exalted world.

Chris

We had our second meeting yesterday.

I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the first session. In fact, I'm ranting loudly at my group for how lacklustre the meeting was. Whee.

First of all, one of my players decided that Exalted wasn't for him, and as our group is quite small already, we still need him to play. I greatly prefer the dynamics of 4 people to 3 people. We then discussed a few other settings/premises, but I felt like a lot of the work we've put into discussing Exalted has been wasted; whiff indeed.

We had a couple of interesting problems. As one of the group had not read one of the essays I'd posted to our gaming list, he was surprised when I reminded him that getting deep into character was not a primary goal of our new game. The entire group's enjoyment, and the collaborative creation of a story are our stated primary goals. I think his confusion came about because in most RPGs I've run in the past (and played in), there's no emphasis on the enjoyment one can have in different stances. Usually, Actor stance is the Holy Grail, and other stances are rarely recognised as worthy approaches. I'd like to see a published RPG that emphasised this; do any?

Ultimately, I think I might push for a more formal gaming contract to be written up, and I'm about to do some searches on the Forge to see if that's been tackled before.

Our group seems scared at the idea of developing a setting from whole cloth, so Paul Czege suggested that our group could run a Narrativist game with a setting from an already-published RPG. At the moment, there's support for Fading Suns, which I'm having a hard time appreciating; the setting seems awfully bland and obvious to me. So we're all taking the next week to get familiar with the Fading Suns book.

This means we're going to have to pick a system, so we might try Sorceror. Has anyone run the Sorceror system with a published setting from another RPG? I know it's a bit of a kludge, but the rules are speedy and clean, and reward in-game cleverness well. They'll also support FitM, which I've never tried.

One possible problem I can see is that the setting and system of established RPGs are tied together, so we might have problems using another system while trying to promote a Fading Suns 'flavour'.

Joe.

Hi Joe,

I'm responding at long-distance, of course, so all of the following should be understood as a projection based on my previous experiences, rather than as a presumed observation of your group.

My first thought concerns a kind of ... what, over-sensitivity, perhaps. So one fellow wants to stop playing? It doesn't seem like a big deal to me, and your apparent rejection of three as opposed to four seems kind of reactive, rather than critical. Wouldn't it be better to see whether play-with-three is so disastrous, before chucking it?

My second thought concerns all this painful contracting and pacting. Think about the band metaphor - sure, these four guys swear on the cover of Led Zep's fourth album "never to break up the band, man," in their garage. But two years later, one guy's fronting some other band, another guy's been replaced, and the new guy and the remaining two have changed the name. This is normal, and I have yet to see a long-term functional game group that did not undergo some version of this shake-up at one point or another.

[Given that the fellow who wants to quit did not enter into the pre-game dialogue anyway, it would seem straightforward that he is not that interested. Why not stick to your guns and forge ahead? Everyone was interested in the first place is still there.]

To continue with the contracting & pacting thing: isn't that a bit high-pressure? To the extent that if one run is a bit flat or mellow, the whole thing has to be chucked out, because "we failed?" One thing about a functioning band is that they understand that not all practice sessions are great, not all cuts turn out well, and not even all gigs or concerts are absolutely fabulous. It seems to me that a blood oath to "play this way" puts a lot of performance anxiety into the picture. Let people find their feet with how they like to play, before grading yourselves rigorously.

Anyway, I suggest - bluntly - that y'all lighten up a little. Enjoy playing, give credit to one another for cool scenes and ideas, don't sweat either a session or a scene that doesn't fly too well. Consider hitch-hiking: you can't get mad about the cars that pass by; the only thing to do is be happy about the one that picks you up.

Again, forgive me, but it all reminds me of some dating scenes from the bad old days, in which one partner demands many and varied specific things about the relationship very early on, and then is hyper-critical (of self and other) at every moment, thus guaranteeing an ugly breakup.

Best,
Ron

P.S. I seem to be on one of my metaphor kicks today.

Hey Broin,

Wow !! Another illuminated soul who tries to play Narrativist Fading Suns ! I'm the local FS freak, so don't be afraid to ask if you have any questions on the setting; I am myself in the process of coming up with a variant of Sorcerer to use with FS; I'll probably add some attributes to reflect the settting and themes, like Alien, Tech, Church, as well as subdividing the attributes into Qualities, Equipment and Troupe - but it's still in the works. I'd be very interested to hear what you guys come up with if you settle for FS.

Manu

Hey Mike,

...but in creation you discover something internal, and in exploration you discover something external. The difference between Michelangelo and Columbus.

I don't know how I missed reading this when you wrote it on the 25th, but I apparently did. So now I just want to say that it's an awesome and incisive analogy.

Paul

Ron Edwards wrote:

I'm responding at long-distance, of course, so all of the following should be understood as a projection based on my previous experiences, rather than as a presumed observation of your group.

Ron,

I think that you may have a slight misunderstanding of the situation (or perhaps I have). It sounds to me like they haven't even played yet. Both sessions were to decide what to play. Am I right, Joe?

Paul,

Thanks, I thought of that becuse I ran a session last summer that was a historical replay of some of the events of Isabel and Ferdinand's court just before Columbus sailed. I noted that Michelangleo was just getting started at the time as well. In fact they have a jillion interesting contemporaries, but have stood out as icons for certain sorts of persons.

Mike

Mike,

You're right, it was our second pre-game meeting. I hadn't even realised Ron might have thought we'd started playing.

Yup, we're deciding on what to play. Starting with 'Narrativism' and working 'down' to things like 'premise', 'setting', etc.

Joe.

Mike,

Fair enough, but all my points still apply.

Best,
Ron

Hey Joe,

Our group seems scared at the idea of developing a setting from whole cloth, so Paul Czege suggested that our group could run a Narrativist game with a setting from an already-published RPG.

I think I remember suggesting a setting from an "indie RPG"...but the important thing wasn't actually the indie-ness of the game. I used the setting from Sun & Storm when I ran The Pool primarily because I liked it, but also partly because it was self-contained. The game is two thin books and that's it. I said "indie" because trend-wise the settings of non-indie games are more, I think, than what you need. I think all you need to soothe the trepidations of your group is the core of a setting, and not something so "revealed across multiple supplements" as Fading Suns. Even Blue Planet is probably too much setting. You need something like Shattered Dreams, or Epiphany, or Paul Elliott's MARS, or Space 1889 maybe, just enough setting to get things started for the group, but not so much that they feel any implied pressure to setting accuracy. You need just enough of a setting so the players are lulled into "created through play" on top of it. And actually, Exalted might not be so bad, just because White Wolf hasn't yet published so much on it.

Paul

Paul Czege wrote:

I think I remember suggesting a setting from an "indie RPG"...but the important thing wasn't actually the indie-ness of the game. I used the setting from Sun & Storm when I ran The Pool primarily because I liked it, but also partly because it was self-contained. The game is two thin books and that's it. I said "indie" because trend-wise the settings of non-indie games are more, I think, than what you need.

One small, but final update, unfortunately.

Though I've brought up Narrativist techniques a great deal with my group, and though we discussed the emphasis on story and the worth of stances other than Actor, I wasn't sure my group understood what it was I wanted to tackle. We're so used to fumbling our way towards a story, while at the same time aiming to be deep in-character that this new approach is a real kick in the arse.

I took a few quotes from the Forge, sent a mail to my group's mailing list, and got a response back quickly. It looks one of my players still doesn't 'get' Narrativism, and didn't realise it was going to be so different from our usual style, so he dropped out. He can't see that RPGs can really work if they don't push people to be in character all the time. For him, that's his goal.

That makes two players who have dropped out, and as only one out of the remaining three is a strong Narrativist, that leaves the game a bit groundless. I can't see these three players working together well, and my enthusiasm is greatly deflated.

Thanks for your input, everyone. I'll update in the future in the unlikely event I run something.

Best,

Joe.

Joe,

Just a thought - I've discovered with my group that sometimes you can "over talk" this stuff. Do something like Ron did in his "Questing Beast" game - pre-create (mostly) characters for folks and play a one-shot. Hell, go ahead and USE Ron's TQB setup - I doubt he'd mind. If you've got players that won't even give one (slightly long) evening of "something maybe a little different" a try . . . then yeah, you might as well give up. But give 'em something concrete to react to, and they may be more willing.

Like I said, just a thought . . .

Gordon

Joe,

i'm totaly with Gordon on this one.

Think about your players ; it's abig step for someone who never had the time to analyse this mode of gaming. And then, it's not everybody bread and butter to analyse how you play.

And you're asking them to engage in a 6 month game !!!

In my groups, I am the one who think the most about "hwo could we play differantly?" or "Is there some others way to facilitate this kind of play"?, ...

The first time was a hard and big deception, all because I was talking about analysing play and theorizing stuff, and none of the players neither enjoyed that kind of thing or seemed to understand what I was talking about.

So the best solution (for my group, and maybe for yours) might be to introduce them to narrativism by playing that way. Call it just a test of some thing differant. So keep it short. It should be easier for the reluctant player to accept to chance their habitude "just for tonight", and then they might realise that it was not that weird or bad...

Don't let it go just because thing seem hard at first (beside, playing with just two players can be a lot of fun,trust me on this !!)

I hope you'll make it.

Fabrice

Oh man. I've just shifted cities a couple of weeks ago, and I was thinking about a friend of mine in the old city. Once when we were drunk we wrote poetry, writing alternate lines, on the computer. Then we made a little comic in MS paint, taking turns to scrawl a panel; it was about a guy named Stan, who liked to drill people's heads for no apparent reason. The last panel was him looking into a sunset; "I'm so fucking lonely". This friend of mine once expressed interest in role-playing, but we never got round to it because of exams and so on. This was all before I understood narrativism and so on.

Now I realize what a perfect narrativist player he would be! He had no preconceptions about what role-playing is, (he had heard of DnD, but had no idea about what you actually 'did' in it, at all!), he liked exploring emotional issues, he was good at ad-libing, and he and I were good at creating stuff together; it would have been heaven! Plus, check this out: I wrote the titles of each of the poems, and I made the first panel in the comic; I also did all the 'art'. Now, is that scene framing and general GM-work or what? But he provided the flesh, the solid emotional content, which I never could. Is that narrativist player work or what?

God, now I have no group here at all, and I am SO frustrated at what I lost.

Anyway, my point is: appreciate what you have. All of you. Take a moment to appreciate that you have people to game with at all, even if they aren't perfect. And never hesitate to try something new with someone new; there may be huge role-playing potential in people you know, that you can't see because they're right in front of you.

And, um, don't take drugs. Mmkay.

Ok, I'm the one who dropped out. In my defense almost every mail Joe sent said that if this wasnt the game for you then drop out. Yesterday he said "If you *do* want a game that focuses on being in character, then it isn't for me, and I can't run it." Now I was willing to try story driven, but not to completely throw out what I enjoy. Sure I'd try something new, and yeah as little nicky said analysing gaming is absolutely not my cup of tea, I see it as a fun leech. But Joe specifically said that what I enjoy would not be involved, so I politely declined.

Gordon (um, the one from Scotland, not the Landis Gordon)--

Good for you. Seriously. A lot of players would have taken Joe's statement as some sort of affront to them. "What do you mean you won't run the game I want to play? That's what the GM does! You're here to serve us!" I think the mature route is to simply realize that everyone is not one the same page, as far as what they want to do & what they want to get out of it. Politely declining, before things can get ugly, is a good, solid way to go.

Okay, I've come to this thread late, and like Ron says, everyone (apart from those involved) is sort of looking at it from afar - but I can't but think this disruption could have been avoided.

I certainly think discussing some of this stuff ahead of time too much can be way too problematic. The reason being: very often people often don't know if this is an acceptable form of play, or how different it will be (for your group) until they actually do it. Each persons narrativism is different in tone and degree - sending them blurb on the more 'extreme ends' of the narrativism spectrum was probably not a good idea.

Start with a narrative push from the GM' perspective.

Your players seem to favour 'getting into character' above all else - I think this is actually a good place to start. I also believe you could have warned them you might be trying something slightly different, and then kicked into gear from your side of the fence.

Just design a story for the new characters based on situations (not plots), relationships and tie that into the characters the players like getting into so well. It would not be long before those relationships, and the drive to solve the situations (player authorship - or at least them acting as protagonists) would have given you basic narrativism (as I understand it anyway)?

If this worked and the group liked, just keep pushing around the edges. If it was not everyone's bag, then at least you found out through practice rather than loosing people to a theory that they might have liked in practice (to one degree or another).

Ian O'Rourke wrote:
I certainly think discussing some of this stuff ahead of time too much can be way too problematic. The reason being: very often people often don't know if this is an acceptable form of play, or how different it will be (for your group) until they actually do it. Each persons narrativism is different in tone and degree - sending them blurb on the more 'extreme ends' of the narrativism spectrum was probably not a good idea.

Gordon wrote:

This is exactly it. I've now gone over the huge GNS essay again and come to the conclusion that I didnt misunderstand it at all. Narrativism doesn't mean that the character has to act in ways which break the suspension of disbelief, so all the character's actions can be believable and IC. IMO that's what makes a convincing story. I wanted the characters to build the story and vice versa. What I didn't see was the more extreme end. Once I saw that was where the game was set, I left.

Ian O'Rourke wrote:
I think you could have found a happy middle-ground as well - as your wish to stay 'in character' all the time during play is actually compatible with narrativism, just not necessarily the extreme end. I think value can be found in going some way, extreme narrativism is not for everyone.

Gordon wrote:
It's not that,
I'm one of the players Joe described as intuitively narrativist. AFAIK I use different stances and introduce complications in the character's life to further the story. What I didn't like was that the examples we discussed in our pre-game meetings suggested that character motivation wasn't to be a factor at all. We were to ignore what we thought the character in the story would do in response to events and tailor it to the overall story we worked out in advance. I wanted the character motivations to work with the story and the story to work with the character motivations.

Gordon

Gordon wrote:
It's not that,
I'm one of the players Joe described as intuitively narrativist. AFAIK I use different stances and introduce complications in the character's life to further the story. What I didn't like was that the examples we discussed in our pre-game meetings suggested that character motivation wasn't to be a factor at all. We were to ignore what we thought the character in the story would do in response to events and tailor it to the overall story we worked out in advance. I wanted the character motivations to work with the story and the story to work with the character motivations.

Leave it to Ralph and me to cross post with nigh identical responses.

Mike

Heh, happens.

Although I would say regarding your example that I don't see anything inherently "better" in either version. One place where I think discussions of narrativism run into difficulty is when phrases like "what's good for the story" start appearing.

Such phrasing is important in so far as it notes that we're not talking about stupid crappy stories...but then who would be motivated to intentionally design a stupid crappy story to begin with. Instead such phrasing as "players will do whats best for the story" implies that there *is* a "best" for for the story and that everyone around the table can agree what that is.

IMO, Mike, each of your examples are perfectly legitamate story choices that can be justified for any style of play. Getting an army together first is no more inherently Sim, than running off solo is inherently narrativist.

The difference is what MOTIVATES the player to make those choices not what the choices are.

Frex, a simulationist player might gather an army first for the reasons you describe. OR he might decide that would take to long and leave the dragon free to rampage and so action needs to be taken now...either option is justifiable.

A narrativist player might narrate gathering an army first also. However this player may be motivated by highlighting the anguish of his character as he sends his men into battle knowing they are ill equipped to handle the dragon and will die most painfully. Another motivator might be that the character, once a valiant knight errant, is now a nobleman and has too many duties and responsibilities to but himself at risk in man to dragon combat. The player might want to spot light the character's guilt at sending other men to their deaths while he stays home managing his estates. The character may even start to question his own courage or start pining for his lost days of youthful adventure. Heck the most dramatic scenes might not even have the dragon in them at all. The dragon may never actually be even seen except through reports recieved.

Point being: I would be extremely reluctant to ever pose two situations and conclude a "simulationist would do A" and a "narrativist would do B". I think those types of examples confuse more than clarify.

The difference is what MOTIVATES the player to make those choices not what the choices are.