Ok, last millenium no matter what happened, the GM did the talking:

Player: "Uh, I got a 7!"
GM: "Krom's mighty blade arcs through the air, splitting Lucky Pierre's shield in two and conking him on the helmet, knocking him out!"
Player: "Cool!"

Then things started to get funky.
Now we've got games where players get to describe successes (e.g., The Pool and its MOV) and we've got games where players get to describe failures (e.g. Trollbabe's narration rules).


Do we have any games where players always get to describe the in-game effect of their actions, just like (frex) an AD&D GM? And if not, what would be the implications if this were the case?

-Matt

This is probably better suited for theory if there is a legit focus, but if tis just a poll wouldn't be surprised to see it disappear.

To answer the question, are there any games that allow both, yup, The Imp Game.
Personal pimping true, but the game does allow for players to narrate success and failure.
To do so, the die mechanic is extremely arbitrary- just because you did something previously doesn't mean you can do it again. The way it works is a wager/escalation system: with each roll, players can wager to up the stakes until a success is eventually reached.
The rules, and my own instructions as I've playtested, have emphasised a little moderation on the outcome, requiring the player to state upfront what they want to happen exactly: Get us out of the hole, pull a catapault out of thin air, etc. If they succeed, they get it, if they don't they don't.

It works because there is no central authority- the dice and the wagers mediate all of the rolls. There is no discussion(and/or arguement) over how difficult an action is or isn't or scads of modifiers for conditions, traits etc. I really think this is what does it for the game.
If players are narrating EVERYTHING, a number of elements do have to change. Oversight without agenda (ie the central roll vs. a GM trying to get everyone from point A to B) Definition is good, group feedback is also good. And Imps makes good use of them.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but my reads of universalis AP posts indicate that players get one way or other, no?

If your game has no GM then the "players" (as defined by "people other than the GM") obviously do all the narrating.

I think it would be really funky to write a game where there is a game-master role, but that role has no narration rights, under any circumstances. They can only interact with the SIS indirectly through the rules.

See, now you've got me thinking. Maybe more later.

The game I'm working on, Astral has exactly that - a player control their own narration. The default assumption is that they can succeed at whatever they want. There is a GM but she's there to offer suggestions and roleplay NPCs. The role of providing adversity is distributed to the other players.

In Prime Time Adventures there's (often) a difference between who wins and who narrates - so the winner could narrate their own success, or their own failure, or not narrate at all, depending on who else is in the conflict and who rolled what.

In Timestream, conflict winners narrate the outcome, with other participants filling in details and such to flesh out what happened to their characters. So yes, players always get to contribute to the description of their characters in-game actions, to some degree.

The thing is, both these games tread a fine line with how much input the GM is allowed into things - and if a particular group or GM comes down on the far side of it, it can rapidly become un-fun for the GM. It seems to me that if players narrate everything, a big chunk of fun-ness for GMs gets taken away (though, of course, if there's a game out there that does this well I'd love to see it).

Nate and Steve: Thanks for the heads-ups. I'll check them both out.
Tony: Yeah, I'm of-course talking about GMed play. For GMless, in addition to Universalis, we also have that one superhero game...


In a "normal" game, there's significant "just talk" time, where everyone can add anything to the SIS. Depending on how Directorish things are, players may add a lot or a little during these phases.
It's pretty easy to imagine players having signficiant Director power during these phases, but for conflicts to be described by the GM.

I'm imagining the inverse: during the just-talking bits, GMs have the usual gobs of Directing to do, but during conflict the GM butts out.


Nathan, your point is that robbing the GM of so much talking might be unfun for the GM. That was my initial thought, too, but I wonder how much of that is just pining over the loss of control. 'Cause players have been operating under those constraints for decades, and they've stuck around.

I'm thinking of a paradigm like this:
Players control pacing and providing adversity 10%, their characters 90%, and setting stuff 50% (heavy input in campaign prep, during play contribute color just by talking, but directoral advantage through a resource).
GMs control pacing and the presentation of conflict 90%, the characters 10%, and setting stuff the other 50%, via regular GM-means.
Obviously these percentages are vague markers, not hard-and-fast restrictions.

Tony, does that still seem really funky? I'm guessing not, because the GM can talk like a mad dog during all the non-conflicty stuff.
If this does seem crazy, I can email anybody the latest version of Ethos; I see I neglected to mention that this design thread is about an actual design. (D'oh.)

As I got further into the writing, it just seemed more intuitive that if the players are going to talk about good results, they could do so about bad as well (or vice versa). But then I did some head scratching to try and figure out if this was really as smart as I thought.
It definately will increase the level of player power, but what's the down side of that? Yeah, potentially low-fun GMness, but is that the greatest risk?

-Matt

It does seem marginally less funky, which I must admit disappoints me a bit. But I can take the outsider's view, and advocate extreme and eccentricity, because it's not my design and I don't have to live with it.

In games where player's empowerment is stronger outside of conflicts than in them, I see a strong tendency for players to avoid conflicts. World of Darkness is (justly, IMHO) notorious for this.

If you reverse the balance of empowerment, I think that players may be just as ready to avoid non-conflicted story-telling, and deal with everything in the conflict rules. Is that something you want?

Ah-ha!

That's a great point, Tony!

Ok, so I'm a player. I'm blundering along in the world, and I can define the color of the flowers free of charge. Or I can spend Resource to become the king of Siam or to win the lottery or something - meaningful input, but requires expendature.

Or, I can start a conflict and change the world free of charge.

This sounds like the player counterpart to heavy scene framing. Never mind the bollocks, here come the interesting bits. As you point out, the players have most say when embroiled in conflict. Therefore, tendancy for conflicts. And we like conflicts!


I didn't realize how this framework so actively encourages active players. I'm excited about this.

-Matt

In octaNe, the dice rolling is for narrative control rather than success or failure so if players win the roll - and they usually do - then they can narrate whatever they like. Some only go for success whereas others try a mix of both.

More self-pimping, but in FADE, who gets to narrate (player or GM) is determined by a floating score called Trouble, like so:

* On a Success, GM Narrates if Trouble is MORE than the checked score.
* On a Success, Player Narrates if Trouble is EQUAL or LESS than checked score.
* On a Failure, GM Narrates if Trouble is Trouble is LESS or EQUAL than checked score.
* On a Failure, Player Narrates if Trouble is MORE than checked score.

So, high trouble and players narrate what happens when they FAIL and low Trouble and they narrate what happens when they SUCCEDE.

Anyone at the table can offer suggestions (and likely will regardless) but the person with the narration rights gets to say 'when'.

I wanted a mechanically-derived and fixed scheme for determining narration.

Before a conflict is entered into, though, the player says what he wants to get out of the conflict (goals) and the GM defines the Consequences of failure. This is set before the dice are rolled, but the narrator gets to interpret them into the final description.

If multiple players engage in a common conflict, then narration is divided a bit more, but the above holds more or less consistent.

-B

Garbanzo wrote: I didn't realize how this framework so actively encourages active players. I'm excited about this.

Well, Shreyas, I called it Design because it's about a specific game that is in process. So far, what I'm going to do is keep this aspect of Ethos. Next step, I think, is to get some info about what other folks have found in play; given the non-traditional power dispersal, a GM section might actually be useful.


I've not played octaNe (yeah, I know). For those who have (that is, everybody else - yeah, I know), how does all this player narration shake things up? octaNe is all about weirdness-times-two, so there's not the ol' "Break the GM's Careful World" issue. Aka the Hairy Chest Gambit.
But people are bringing bringing up a good number of games, and I'm sure they all ain't as funky as octaNe.

How does all this Playah POWAH change the tone of the game, both over the long term and short? As Tony pointed out, possibly players will drive play towards conflicts. My sense is that it also directly increases the No-Mythiness: that the GM is moved to a (relatively) more reactive position, exactly proportionate to the strength of players' voices.

In the games folks have brought up, is this true?
If yes: Without pre-game preparatory conversations, have either players or GMs been observed to sabotage this?

-Matt

My results with Imps vary.
My last game, my players totally exploited the GP economy and generated a LOT of points, more than most games combined actually (all players start with 10 and normally end under...in this one, there were points when two of us had 20+ points individually). This would be in the "conflict driven" catagory- the challenge rewarded the players. So, every time I turned around, the two other players were trying some other combative action to put everyone in a challengeing situation.
Another game was definetly more story oriented. Rather than react to roll after roll, this group purposely worked toward the stated goal, with rolls appearing periodically and rather naturally- "I'm going to do X." "Well, X IS tricky..." "Okay, so I'll roll, no biggie", and story blossomed from success as well as failure. A few minutes of story/diolouge might result in one little check, maybe a couple if failure occured and everyone really wanted the stated outcome.

With my title, how it goes will always depend on the nature of the crew- I won't say it directly facilitates one way or another. Prep talk is always a part of the Imp game and sabatoge is based on the roll of the dice and can be done by any player. Imps GM/DMs are always reactionary- everyone plays within the established bounds and the G/DM only comes in when someone breaks the bounds, which hasn't actually occured in my play, only some "Okay, enough OOC guys".

Garbanzo wrote: I've not played octaNe (yeah, I know). For those who have (that is, everybody else - yeah, I know), how does all this player narration shake things up? octaNe is all about weirdness-times-two, so there's not the ol' "Break the GM's Careful World" issue. Aka the Hairy Chest Gambit.

I'll also note that Pretender has narration completely independent from success of failure -- any participant, even the GM, can narrate a given conflict, regardless of the results.

I'll also note that Pretender has narration completely independent from success of failure -- any participant, even the GM, can narrate a given conflict, regardless of the results.

Garbanzo wrote: ...and in what ways does the game differ as a result?

I should know the answer to this, but I can't remember, Kirt. When two players disagree on a narration in Pretender, what happens?

The way I see it, all narrations are to some extent, negotiated between everyone at the table. The real question is who has final say if there are disagreements.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I should know the answer to this, but I can't remember, Kirt. When two players disagree on a narration in Pretender, what happens?

Ah, I see. When you say independent, you mean determined independently. I had gotten a vision of a game where the dice are rolled, and everybody just starts offering suggestions. Basically everybody can narrate every result. Which, you'll admit, would tend to lead to people coming up with multiple interpretations, which would further have to have some way of deciding who has final say.

It's been implied by some that people are collaborative enough creatures that it doesn't matter who narrates an event. But even those people agree that in the end it's important to say who has final say. That's the basic principle here, I think. Narration is, in fact, given to everyone to negotiate in all cases, I believe. I mean even if you say, "Player X narrates this, and nobody else can interfere," there are social pressures in the group that make all narrations negotiated, IMO. What's important is that, if these negotiations cannot be successfully concluded, that there be somebody empowered to have final say and move the game on.

Mike

Hello,

Mike has nailed it. The term "the Buck" in the vocabulary is extremely valuable; games which assign specific narration are really talking about the Buck ... and hence are promoting group narration rather than circumscribing it.

Best,
Ron

Damn! I just discovered that "the Buck" isn't in the Glossary.

It comes from the phrase "the buck stops here," meaning that someone needs to have the role of rubber-stamping or finalizing the conclusive content of everyone's input into narration.

It differs very greatly from "the Conch," which refers to everyone else shutting up while someone takes sole rights of narration.

See also Why I can't say "I had fun playing Trollbabe". Michael was under the impression we were using the Conch when the rest of us were using the Buck.

Best,
Ron

A little etymology on the "buck": http://www.trumanlibrary.org/buckstop.htm

The difference between the conch and a buck-knife is pretty appropriate, symbolically, no?

Mike