Okay, same group as in my last AP post here, my wife Melani and a good friend, Paul.  We’re still trying to get the hang of conflict resolution and narrative play, and this game went just as roughly as the last one but with our experience in failure accumulating, it was a bit more discussed at the table this time.

Mel’s character this time was a female bamboo warrior, Mercenary for Hire (Key of Conscience, Key of Bloodlust).  Paul played the same ratkin with the Keys of the Precious, and Glittering Gold.  I tried to get input from them concerning what sort of game they wanted to play but they had no suggestions.  I think this is one of our primary problems.  But I was confident that we had a better scenario for me to give them this time.  I took their characters, of which Mel’s was a newly created one, and used their sheets to make what I thought would be some good NPCs to interact with and setting for them to exploit.

The setting would be in the old lands of Zaru where one of the lesser Ammenite House royals ran some slave plantations, harvesting botanicals from the swamp.  Thrown into the mix was a jealous cousin looking to overthrow the leading house member in the area, ratkin who were looking to keep the Ammenites from spreading any further into the swamp, and a Zaru underground rebel who wanted to free his bonded kinsmen.

They’re lack of input led me to open with a scene in which Mel had been hired as a bodyguard to an Ammenite diplomat and Paul had been hired by said diplomat to facilitate a meeting with the troublesome ratkin.  I gave them both the Key of Mission to help attach them to this and they seemed good with it.  The scene involved the diplomat getting rather nasty and trying to apprehend the ratkin.  Mel acted against her Key of the Mission in defense of the ratkin and Swayed the diplomat to continue negotiations.  Those were narrated out as being unsuccessful, the diplomat left and Paul stuck with him so as to get his pay.  The diplomat assured Mel that she would never find work in the region again and left her.

A bit of narration leads Paul back to the Ammenite noble’s house where he manages to earn a bit more gold through swift talk.  Mel gets introduced to the ratkin leader.  And then we stalled again.  I’m finding it terribly difficult knowing how and when to lead from one scene to the next and making it feel “right”.  I keep looking from input from the players but they seemed locked into simply reacting to what I feed them.  I never really feel like they’re bought into what’s going on and as a result my scenes just feel empty.

So we talked.  Again.  Paul’s most prominent issue was that this style of game “is just too disorganized.”  And he’s right in a way.  I don’t have notes upon notes of rooms, places, and plot hooks.  Player actions lead to events that I have to narrate through improv mostly and that’s hard.  This time I felt like I had decent scenes but after we start playing and things start happening I can’t figure out when and how to introduce those scenes, so we move shakily from one area to the next, with them waiting for something that prompts reaction.  That leads to little conflict.

Mel’s most prominent comment was that she just doesn’t see anything when we’re playing…meaning that her mental image of what’s going on is blank.  I asked her if she could see the events when we played D&D and she responded with an emphatic yes.  She said in these last two sessions she feels like she’s floating in some ambiguous emptiness and has a hard time connecting to the events in the game.  She admits that she’s terribly uncomfortable trying to paint a scene for us, for example when she wins a conflict.  As a matter of fact they both tend to await my description of a conflict resolution even when they’ve won.

Well, after we stopped I asked if I could read my NPCs and their goals to them, just to discuss.  I did so and they said it was all neat.  I asked how I could have enveloped them in what was going on.  They didn’t know.  That tells me that again, I had no buy in from them (am I using that term correctly, buy in?).  They couldn’t see where they wanted to fit into the drama.  I asked Melani later if it would have helped if I had read all that stuff prior to the game and then let her choose where she stood in the story.  Maybe.

I think another part of the problem is the fact that they may not even have bought into their characters either.  I think they still look at them as pawns with skills that they can use to overcome situations.  I don’t see them squeezing all they can from their keys or finding where they stand in the scenes.  They still want me to tell them where they should stand.

I really tried this time prior to the game to get some input as to what they’d like to do.  What they wanted to happen.  They had no answers.  I’m really having trouble with this and I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps our creativity just isn’t up to this.  I hate to think it but maybe we are just rollplayers and always have been, using a complex system with a fully developed play world as a crutch for our “story-telling”.

I don’t know...lots of frustrations at this point.  Mostly at me for not knowing how to properly introduce them to these new games.  I try to ask questions to get a grip on the issues we are having but I get a lot of “I don’t knows”.  Anyone else ever deal with anything like this?  Is this a matter of creative agenda discrepancies between us?  I’m up for any discussion I can get on this from you folks.  I just received my order of new indie games today and Dogs in the Vineyard sounded really cool to ‘em.  They wanted to know if it was like what we’ve been trying to do in these last two sessions, with “scenes and us narrating”.  What can I do?

Don, (Is that your name?  I'm just sort of guessing from the username.)

I'm going to offer a suggestion and then let the experts weigh in.  They may or may not have more informative things to say than I.

Reading your post it seemed to me that you had them create characters separately from the actual creation of the situation (ie. the stuff that was going on with the Ammenites, the Zaru terrorist guy and the ratkin).  This might be one reason that you're having problems with buy in from your players.  A good technique to try would be to either collectively create the situation (so that it's interesting to them) or to bring them the "what is going on now" situation that you've come up with before character creation (relieving them of pressure to input more than they're comfortable).  If the situation is detailed first then the characters can be tied to it during creation by the players in ways that they do find engaging and you don't have to find hooks to drag them to the conflict.

donbaloo wrote: A bit of narration leads Paul back to the Ammenite noble’s house where he manages to earn a bit more gold through swift talk.

Mel gets introduced to the ratkin leader.

Hi Andrew, actually...its Chris.  I've added that to my signature to avoid confusion from now on.  Thanks for the input.

I definitely agree that the lack of buy in is due to the way we've done characters and session prep as sort of two disconnected processes.  I've been pushing to get input on their ideal session for these games and figured that having the characters first would help them get an idea of that.  I knew I was in trouble though when the characters were finished and they still had no input as to what they wanted from the game.  For that matter I tried to broach the topic before characters were made and still nothing came to the fore.

I like the idea of giving them the "what's happening right now" spill before play so they can figure out where they want to stand.  I realized that after we had stopped and I read them all the NPC stuff that maybe if I'd done that before hand things would have went more smoothly.  I have trouble in that area too...the whole letting go of information.  I'm torn on how much of the situation to lay bare so as to not ruin their enjoyment of discovering the agendas of the NPCs.  I guess that's counterproductive for the type of game I want to see unfold though.  It really is a tough step to take.  I would really like to get to the point where we can collaboratively discuss the upcoming session and then build characters that  fit into it perfectly.  Those discussions have always been pretty one sided though with me having to put forth ideas that get accepted without much actual discussion.

And all of this leads me back to the question that I broached in my first AP thread...have I discovered that this play style is something we don't want, maybe even beyond our grasp and abilities...or is it just so alien that we are being overwhelmed by temporary adjustment pains?

I know the ideal situation would be for us to sit down as a group, discuss what the next game will be about and then make characters to play roles that we want to play within that scenario.  The BW gang definitely drove that point home.  And I've tried that.  But when it comes to my players being asked to tell me what they want to happen in the game upcoming, I get the sort of responses I'd anticipate getting if I had asked someone what type of water they prefer to breathe.  It seems to be that foreign.

Hi Callan.  Paul succeeded on his roll which was pretty high anyway with a bonus die against the noble's innate defense against that approach which turned out pretty low.  As far as the scene with Melani's character meeting the ratkin leader...yeah, I brought that in.  The previous scene sort of came to a close with Paul's character leaving with the diplomat and Mel's character left behind to do whatever she wanted.  The ratkin offered to arrange a meeting with his leader.  All this was put forth by me because she was waiting for me to give her a lead and it seemed to be a relatively logical step. 

Hello Chris,

I've never played TSoY as of this day, but I've encountered similar issues with The Pool. I've identified a series of issues I had to overcome to get more satisfying play. A lot of them are due to habits one has to identify and then overcome.

Typically, the idea that the GM narrates the consequences of player actions. I've seen that "wtf-look" from experienced players time and again when I go "ok, you won, go ahead and tell us how your character overcomes the adversity".
They are just so used to the fact that it's the GM job that they don't want to do it at first. Once they get used to it though, they really appreciate the extra control and freedom it gives them to portray their characters.

Have you played the Pool with them?
Its rules let the player choose between narrating a success or letting the GM do it and receive additional ressources.
As a GM, I like to narrate their success with a big "but..." That is, their success comes with a price, an annoyance or whatever that kind of tarnishes their success.
You'll soon see them going for narration control in order to have it their way!
Looks a bit like "stick and carrot", but it helped (and makes for more interesting play in my opinion).

I don't remember if TSoY has you create relationships (with characters or groups), character goals and personality traits. If it doesn't, try that out. I've noticed that they are elements a lot of players never think of when they write up their character (especially the first two), while at the same time being very important narration engines.
People interact in some fashion with one another to obtain something, all the time. Write that down and support it mechanically! It works wonders!

So create the characters first and then place them at the center of a relationship map of NPCs that are somehow connected to the PCs. Some of these NPCs will be created by the players to go with their characters, some will have to be prepared by the GM.
The GM then plays those character's agendas. In this way, whatever he does, the PCs are affected in a way or another and they will quickly latch on to play and start sorting things out according to their own plans.

I learned that from a Heroquest game online with Mike Holmes. He hardly ever prepares anything, he just looks at our character sheets and then throws amazing stuff at us! All of that because the character sheets hold important information in regards to a narrative point of view.
Dogs in the Vineyard also has a strong focus on relationships, allowing players even to assign relationships retroactively, just to tie into conflicts more efficiently. It has also neat techniques for the GM to create a batch of NPCs on the fly.

Then there's the difficulty of asking players what they'd like to see next. A lot of players think that it takes out the surprise factor, or consider that that would be creating one's own adversity.
In fact, it only gives play a certain direction that you know will be of interest to the player. You can surprise them by the way you introduce stuff and of course the resolution of conflicts is always open, so that no one can possibly know how it's going to end.

Last piece of advice is Vincent Baker's "Say yes or roll". That is, as long as something isn't fundamentally important, let the players have it their way. This lets them reach really important stuff faster. Then you contest it via the game's mechanic and watch the sparks flying!
I used to have my players roll for hunting for food in games where this wasn't important and all it used to do was to bog down play. Sometimes characters would even get killed by random encounters... that's so not to the point that I now shudder just thinking of it!

Now, this brings us to your last question: is this way of playing what you like?
You mentioned creative agendas. If you want to identify your group's favorite agenda, look back at some of your older games that where a success.
Write an AP about what excited the player's interest, what it was that motivated their decisions and how they considered the game's reward system.
I find it difficult to tell from this AP, but since it's a pretty hefty issue, you might want to write a new AP specifically aimed at those three points.
Don't bother too much with the "story", single out a few important scenes and how the players made their decisions. Also tell us how the rules where used (if used at all).

With what you've written here and considering personal experiences, I have the feeling that the "old habits vs new techniques" trumps any other issue you might have had. At least, I've seen nothing that clearly says that your players couldn't enjoy a narrativist experience (as this is what TSoY supports best).

Just take a habit of breaking your habits if they don't help you achieve what you're aiming at!

To your players, being in the driving seat is an alien experience. By telling them in they are in the driving seat, and continually asking for their input, you might actually be making it harder for them than it needs to be. The truth is, you don't need to get their input as players before player - instead, you should be giving them situatiosn to respond to, to get involved with, and then, when they get invested, they will start wanting to see things happen - that's when they'll use narration.

What you need to do, in play, is go for the jugular.
Introduce old friends or lovers, and threaten them. (Also, say something like, "you meet an old lover. What's he'she like?" Then when they've got a mental image of that character, you can threaten it, or have it seeking help on another matter.)
Have a ratkin tribe being wiped out, and give the ratkin player the opportunity to do something about it or to profit from it.
Look at their keys, and deliberately create situations where they have the opportunity to act upon them, but in doing so they'll make an enemy - then make sure that enemy causes them trouble.

Ideally, you should be creating situations and NPCs that matter to the players. At this stage, that'll be hit-and-miss, and that's okay. Draw on your knowledge of the players and your history of gaming together. You'll have seen situations in other games which triggered responses from them, so try to create similar situations or characters.
It's worth doing more preparation than usual to start off with - until you get the hanfg of it. Think of at leats twice as many characters and sitruations as you think you'll need, so that if the players don't seem interested in something, you can bring something else in.

I wonder if you are being too hands-off in your GMing? It seems common for GMs who move to narrativist games from traditional games to think they have to hold back, and let the players lead. In fact, this kind of game needs the GM to drive the players hard - to plunge them into active and dynamic situations, to force them into difficult choices. (Using knowledge of player likes, and character sheet details like Keys, Skills, and Secrets)
It's not railroading, because the players can seize narration and change the situation, and you're not pre-deciding the outcome.

The best way to get your players to start using narration is to put them in situations where horrible things are happening to people or things they care about, and to provide them with a clear context from which to start acting. When they know what's happening, and act to intervene in some way, they will automatically think of ways to stop it - and in doing so, they are using narration.

So, instead of asking them what they want to happen, make something happen, and give them the choice of how to resolve it.

Once you have familiar characters and situations building up over sessions, then the players will start volunteering the things they want to see happen. Right now, they don't know enough about the setting, their characters, or this kind of game to do that yet.

Anyone, that's my random thoughts.

donbaloo wrote:
Hi Callan.  Paul succeeded on his roll which was pretty high anyway with a bonus die against the noble's innate defense against that approach which turned out pretty low.  As far as the scene with Melani's character meeting the ratkin leader...yeah, I brought that in.  The previous scene sort of came to a close with Paul's character leaving with the diplomat and Mel's character left behind to do whatever she wanted.  The ratkin offered to arrange a meeting with his leader.  All this was put forth by me because she was waiting for me to give her a lead and it seemed to be a relatively logical step.

Thanks for the help Christoph-
Yes, that’s exactly what I get when I ask them to narrate a scene.  It’s a look of mixed disbelief and discomfort.  My wife outright said that she just couldn’t do it after our second session.  We’ve not played the Pool but perhaps that suggestion is best…me take the narration when they pass on it but make it clear that by doing so I receive the benefit of adding a little extra something for my NPCs.  I’ll certainly consider that and discuss that with them.

Relationships and goals.  That’s a tough one and it’s really what bogged us down with Burning Wheel.  They really have a tough time with this for some reason and at this point I’m just hoping that’s because to the disconnect they’re having over being offered such blatant input towards the game at hand.  It’s almost like there’s a creativity sinkhole in the room whenever we attempt to branch out beyond our typical habits.  I’d like to see relationships and personal character goals begin to happen in our games.

The relationship map idea I know is a good one because everyone around here talks about them.  I’m not real good or clear on how those work exactly though.  I was under the impression they were a part of the Sorcerer rules but I’ve just nearly made it through my first reading of it and haven’t seen it yet.  I guess the key to said map would be to have the pc’s at the center with everyone having some connection to them?  I realize now that in our last session I had what I’d call a sort of relationship map between the NPCs but the bad thing is the PCs weren’t inherently attached to that map.  Just very loosely based on the opening relationship that I narrated into existence.  Not much buy in there.  You mentioned DitV and I’ve just received that one too and they’re at least excited about the theme.  Perhaps it’ll get us intimately acquainted with relationships and how interesting they can be.  I’m also hoping that just having a genre break entirely may make it easier for us to change our gaming habits.  Perfectly clean slate and all that.

Concerning players fearing that helping set up the game will ruin the surprise factor.  This is an issue for us, definitely.  And they’ve voiced this concern to me in the past when we were working on BW and I have to admit that even GMing narrative play I find myself waffling back and forth on how much info to give away so that I don’t spoil their enjoyment of discovery.  I’m pretty sure that if narrative play can’t support at least some level of discovery on the part of the players then they’re just not going to go for it.  I sort of feel like that if we can really get started on this though that it could provide even more “discovery” than we normally have, for everyone, the GM included.  That would be nice.

I’m already trying to get in the habit of say yes or roll.  We’ve done pretty well so far, with maybe a few slip ups but I’m trying to stay on top of that one.  The main problem I’m experiencing with it right now though is sometimes maybe erring too far on the side of saying yes, and letting some conflicts slip away that perhaps should be rolled for.

As far as putting together a separate AP on what we’ve liked in the past.  I’ll have to put some thought into that and ask some questions of them.  I’ve tried to pry this out of my wife but she never really has anything constructive on it.  She says that she enjoys all of it.  More detailed than that and she gets frustrated.  The toughest part about all this analysis with the players is I’m getting close to that line where they’re going to begin asking, “Since this is so much trouble and we’re having to put so much thought into figuring out what’s wrong…why can’t we just go back to playing D&D?  We like that and can do it already.”  Maybe that’s the big problem here?

Thanks for the assistance and good advice Christoph!  I’m still open to any more questions or suggestions you may have.  I’m going to continue mulling this all over…

Hi Darren, thanks for jumping in here.  That is exactly what I’m beginning to wonder.  Am I making this harder than necessary by asking too much too soon?  It’s the coming up with good situations to get them involved with that’s the problem right now.  When I think I have a good situation it turns out that I have no buy in.  To get buy in I’m under the impression that I need some input from them that will have them invested in the game from the opening scene.  I like the idea of introducing old friends or lovers, or even old enemies for that matter.  But unless I can get them to create those old relationships its not going to mean a whole lot to them is it?  So in that regard, yeah, it’s definitely gonna be hit or miss and mostly misses right now.  Guess it’s just a matter of keeping at it until we find our groove.

I’ve noted your idea though wherein once they begin to take actions having those actions result in enemies.  Guess that’s the key that keeps this sort of game driving forward.  I have to say that its really hard a this point…learning a new system after 20 years of the same, readying important scenes, figuring out how to set good stakes and use conflict resolution, and then remembering some of these basic good ideas to help narration.  That and just trying to get better at improve altogether.  It’s a difficult juggling act.

Too hands off in my GMing?  I’m afraid you’ve probably nailed it with that one.  I’m trying to go from our old style of follow the GM to the very opposite extreme of “Hey, take the lead and show me what you want.”  And it’s not working.  I was so worried about being too hands on and backsliding into our old style that I’ve just went too far in the other direction and been a bit of an unbending tyrant about it.  The tricky thing is, and I’ve considered this, I could run a game strictly like what we’re accustomed to, using the TSoY rules though, and they’d love it I’d wager.  I don’t want to have to go that far backwards with it though.  I just want to learn what I need to do to give them a good fair shake at narrative play. 

Maybe I can do both though, for the transition period.  You’re probably right that over a few games we’ll begin to build up some regular NPCs that they can get attached to in the game.  I could run these games with a little more prep and thoroughness, like they’re accustomed to, until they find their feet within the setting and the events around them.  Then, once they get attached, start shifting slowly towards having a more narrative game with a scene approach and giving them a heavier hand in narration when they’re ready for it.  I’m scared that could just set us back though.

And you mentioned railroading.  Being new and all to this I have to say that having a list of scenes feels a bit more rail driven than even our D&D games.  I feel like that by having a list of prearranged scenes, though they can turn out however they want them to turn out, its still sort of strong-armish in that they have to be there in that scene to begin with.  Just wanted to throw that out there.  Granted, as is obvious, I haven’t fully caught on to this anyway so I realize I’m probably totally wrong about that when it comes to properly applying it in game.

Thanks for the help though.  You’ve definitely made me realize one thing for sure…I’ve got step back to the mound and throw tough pitches.  I can’t sit back hoping for them to miraculously figure out this style and fall in love with it.  I still need to give them some steady direction and it’s my responsibility to figure out how to involve their characters in the game in exciting ways.  I have been too hands off.  Again, thanks for the help.  Take care…

Hi there Callan, thanks for sticking in there with me.  I have certainly been striving towards getting through to the ”why’s” of their actions.  There are a couple complications in the midst of that though.
1)For a lot of what happens it appears that they seriously are at a loss for a motivation behind an action.  For example, we’re just so accustomed to collecting gold in a game that it’s simply its own motivation for Paul in that scene.  And a lot of our actions tend to fall into that category.
 
“Why do you want the extra gold?”
“Because my character likes gold.”
“Why do you want it from this noble in particular?”
“Because he has it.”
“What do you foresee the gold doing for you?”
“Well, I’ll get experience points if I’m successful.”
“What about the story though, what its do for the story?”
“I don’t know, I just want the gold so maybe I can buy stuff.  My character is a freeloading gypsy sort and he’s always looking for gold.”

I find that finding the motivations behind their combat actions is pretty easy, they want to get their opponent to surrender, or want to stop them from attacking someone else.  Although  sometimes feel like the motivation should go even deeper than that though.  Why just stop them from attacking their victim when you can stop them from attacking and  have the authorities show up and apprehend them.  This is the other big problem.

2) We’re having trouble determining just how big and overarching a motivation we can be when we set our stakes.  I mean, I could feasibly keep asking “Why” after every response they give me until we get to some really big stake that is beyond the scope of what we were ever driving towards.  Most of this is I’m sure intuitive to folks familiar with these games but since we’re finding our feet its too easy for us to overanalyze everything we’re doing.

“Why do you want the extra gold?”
“Because my character likes gold.”
“Why do you want it from this noble in particular?”
“Because he has it.”
“What do you foresee the gold doing for you?”
“I can use it to buy arms for the ratkin in the swamp.”
“And what purpose will that serve?”
“They’ll be more effective in their attacks on the slavers.”
“Why do you want that to happen?”
“I want to see the slavers driven out of the swamp.”
“Excellent, so I think that’s the stakes then…”

That’s a bit dramatized for effect but hopefully it painted the picture.  Sometimes we just don’t know where to stop.

We haven’t arranged another play date yet, but I anticipate it being two weeks or so.  It may be a move to DitV though.  They're interested in it and I'm wondering if a complete change, genre and all, will help facilitate our adjustment.

Take care….

The tricky thing is, and I’ve considered this, I could run a game strictly like what we’re accustomed to, using the TSoY rules though, and they’d love it I’d wager.  I don’t want to have to go that far backwards with it though.  I just want to learn what I need to do to give them a good fair shake at narrative play.

Being new and all to this I have to say that having a list of scenes feels a bit more rail driven than even our D&D games.  I feel like that by having a list of prearranged scenes, though they can turn out however they want them to turn out, its still sort of strong-armish in that they have to be there in that scene to begin with.

Listen to Rafial, for he is wise.

I was going to suggest the same thing. Take baby steps. Run TSOY exactly like you have always run a game, but add one thing. Let's say you add stakes to every roll. That's it. Otherwise, prep and run the game just like your D&D sessions, and don't ask more than normal from the players. That one tiny change will make a huge difference, but it should be less overwhelming for your players.

Then, after a few sessions, maybe offer them the chance to set a scene if they're interested. If not, no big deal. If they're dying to narrate an outcome, let them, but don't make demands. "Pushing" a play style onto your friends is a sure way to turn them off. You've shown them the tools that are available, and that's good. Now just back off and go back to their comfort zone. When they want to reach for a new tool, they will. If they don't, they don't.

When you are running a game like TSoY, or any other games with a beliefs system, it is important that the players feel that the keys (or beliefs) they have chosen will lead there characters into some interesting, exiting situations. A key is a statement to the GM about what the players want to see happening to their characters, and it is the GM job to show the player, that the trouble they went through to choose a key, will be rewarded with a game where the keys are the centre of the drama. You can not expect the player to invest into their character, as long as you haven't invested into the characters.

If you feel you have to give the character an extra key to get them into the game, you are properly doing something wrong; you are making a game that don't have any interest for the characters as the player made them. Your intention is properly just to get something started, and then later throw in scenes that are related to the characters keys. This could work, if the players is used to this kind of games, but if they are not, then you have to grab them from the start.

The first scenes in the game should be based around the keys. Take for instance the mercenary character (key of conscience, key of bloodlust), a story could be:

She comes to a new city. Short after her arrival a thief band from the nearby forest raids the part of the city where all the poor people lives. The city guard does not seem to do anything about this. The people that have been raided collect all the money they can spare, and go to the character and ask if she can help them, though they can not pay her very well.

These scenes will relate to both of her keys, so it will be easy for the player to react on them. And even though this story is rather simple, it leads to further questions: Why did the city guard not help?

The ratkin character is a little harder to get into play. You may ask the player to drop on of his keys, and choose a new one that don't have anything to do with greed.

- Anders

Hi all.  Just finished the "brain-damaged" thread (with reference threads) here at the Forge and I'm exhausted.  None the less, Rafial and John I think I'll do just that.  It's what I had come to realize I needed to do with Burning Wheel and didn't, and I'm thinking it again now with the TSoY.  Your urgings have won through.  Again, thanks for being helping.

Anders-You're hitting on one of the main grinding points that we're having in our sessions and I alluded to it a couple time in my posts.  I don't think the players really look at their Keys and seeing them for the important tools that they are.  I've tried to stress it but they're not even really buying in to their own Keys.  Beliefs in Burning Wheel suffered even more.  And you're right, that's exactly why I included that additional opening Key...because I didn't get the feeling they were bought into their own and even the scenes that I had prepped once I finished them.  At least that Key of the Mission felt like something they could recognize from past games we've had.

I'm putting TSoY aside permanently by any means but I do want to try DitV with them.  They want it and so that's at least a good start.  I'm hoping it can teach us the importance of relationships and how they can be used creatively to build a better a more engaging session.  I'll be sure to let everyone know how it goes.

Correction...not putting TSoY aside permanently.  Not.  There's still too much to be loved there.

DitV has one of the coolest game text I ever read. Vincent has a way of bringing things to you that is just marvelous and he definitely knows how to talk to the experienced GM who has encountered those habits we've been talking about.

In play, the narration goes back and forth between the players and the GM, so you can try things similar to the one I was suggesting with the Pool.

The players don't need to think up a lot of relationship at the beginning (in fact, it's better if they keep them relatively low). The mechanics then incite them to "relate" to various NPCs found along the way, tying them ever more into the action.

And what's really cool is that the way you build your town pretty wraps up all that we've said in this trait (placing the PCs at the center of the "relationship map" (you can find those in the Sorcerer's Soul and they're good for lots of games) even though it isn't suggested to draw one up, revealing the town actively (this is where you get to throw serious stuff at them rather than staying hands off), ...)

If on top of that they're eager to give it a go, then that's just perfect!

As a final note, I suggest dropping in at Indie netgaming on IRC. If you've got the time, you could for instance join in Mike's Heroquest game (he's always eager to see new players join), which showed me a lot of cool things by example.

Thanks for that link Christoph, I might just want to check into that indeed.  Looking forward to reading through Dogs now....

Hi Chris,

To get under his skin you probably need to get under your own first. For example, what gets under my skin (and this is just me, find one that really gets under your skin) is if the noble didn't have any cash on him at the moment (bandit are around, you know), so he hands the player a notice to take assets from a local commoner. Yes, take the assets. Will he do it?

The way this works is that even if he takes simply answers it as a 'well, I'm just doing it for tactical reasons' you will be there at the table, going "Whoa!" because his answer will penetrate right through your skin and get to you. You will appreciate it as a narrativist address. Your genuine body language will encourage him to further engage narrativist premise.

Plus, I don't quite know how keys work in TSOY. But in the riddle of steel, your spiritual attributes recharge even if you fail while just damn well trying to live up to them. In this case, even if he doesn't take the gold, I'd recommend giving him the experience for the key he has about collecting gold. It's a reward for him squaring off with the question, rather than how he answers it.

Hi Chris,

There’s some real smart stuff in this thread. Maybe I can add one or two things.

First: I’ve been there, man. I’ve seen the empty looks in my players’ faces. And I know that this is especially hard when you are still having trouble yourself figuring out how a game works. This is tough, so be easy on yourself. Here’s what worked for me: I played the games online in chat games, with people that were as hot to play them as myself. So we could figure out the rules and procedures together, without at the same time trying to sell the game to each other.

Once you have a better grip on the game’s rules and procedures, you can introduce it to your players more easily. Also, you can start making smart suggestions to emphasize how the game works. Like: “You know, you could take the Key of the Vow for your vengeance if you like.” Or: “Remember, you can buy off your Key and spend the Advances RIGHT NOW if you...” Or you can show them cool tricks by doing it with an NPC, like using one Ability Check to get bonus dice for another.

You said you asked players to narrate scenes. I have read the game text of TSoY several times, and I don’t recall reading anything about that. TSoY is quite classic on the divide between player and GM tasks. Player says what he wants to do, you either say okay or ask for a Check. Check succeeds, what the player described happens (maybe you add a detail), and you react to that. Check fails, player can either Bring Down the Pain, or you describe how he fails.

See? Just like D&D. Bringing Down the Pain is a little different because of the intentions, but still, players don’t just narrate scenes. Please note that player narration only works with well-defined rules as to what can and cannot be added through the narration. The Stakes in Primetime Adventures, Coins in Universalis or Key Phrases in Polaris are good examples. Without such rules, it’s no wonder players feel unsure as to what they should narrate.

Hope this helps.

- Frank

donbaloo wrote: 2) We’re having trouble determining just how big and overarching a motivation we can be when we set our stakes.  I mean, I could feasibly keep asking “Why” after every response they give me until we get to some really big stake that is beyond the scope of what we were ever driving towards.  Most of this is I’m sure intuitive to folks familiar with these games but since we’re finding our feet its too easy for us to overanalyze everything we’re doing.

“Why do you want the extra gold?”
“Because my character likes gold.”
“Why do you want it from this noble in particular?”
“Because he has it.”
“What do you foresee the gold doing for you?”
“I can use it to buy arms for the ratkin in the swamp.”
“And what purpose will that serve?”
“They’ll be more effective in their attacks on the slavers.”
“Why do you want that to happen?”
“I want to see the slavers driven out of the swamp.”
“Excellent, so I think that’s the stakes then…”

That’s a bit dramatized for effect but hopefully it painted the picture.  Sometimes we just don’t know where to stop.

TSoY is quite classic on the divide between player and GM tasks. Player says what he wants to do, you either say okay or ask for a Check. Check succeeds, what the player described happens (maybe you add a detail), and you react to that. Check fails, player can either Bring Down the Pain, or you describe how he fails.

Hello all, thanks for the extra input.

Callan- Premise is something that I'm just now beginning to fully grasp after a second look at Ron's essay on Narrativism.  At this point all I can say is that yes I would like to eventually get to the point where we are facing conflicts with levels of significance that qualify them as Premise.  I realize though that so far that's not something we've be even aiming at exactly.  So we're even further from Narrativism that I feared.  I'm hoping we can get the hang of simple conflict resolution, and stakes setting, first so that it can become a tool for exactly the sort of thing your talking about.  With all the learning we're going through right now its proving to be very difficult to come up with Theme building conflicts through improv.  But that's all my fault really.  I realize now that these games need to be approached with significantly more preparation than I first assumed, and that explains why I've had trouble answering questions like "What is your goal for that scene Story Teller?".  With more NPC prep and consideration towards my players' characters I think we'll find ourselves in scenes where Premise addressing conflicts will become more obvious and not so much "let's try to figure out something really cool to make happen here" followed by 10 minutes of discussion on what that cool something could possibly be.  We will get there.  And then we'll be able to fairly discuss whether we like the style of play or not.

Frank- It makes me smile when someone jumps in and says that they've totally been in my shoes back when they were learning all of this.  Gives me hope.  You're suggestion is fantastic and I've just begun looking into getting into a chat game for the very reasons you mentioned.  I really do need to see other folks playing these games, how they flow, what exactly is going on metagame-wise, and not have to worry about selling the game at the same time.  You nailed that one.  Its killing me having to stumble through these games without a clear vision of how they should work and trying to convince my players that they "could be cool once we get the hang of them".  And you're also right that these games are perhaps closer to what I'm accustomed to than what I've led myself to believe.  I've just assumed that they've got to be radically different than anything we've ever done before.  Its been difficult trying to completely overhaul every aspect of what we're accustomed to when we sit down at the table. 

Thor- Yeah, and our discussion helped clear a lot of that up for me.  What you said was good I feel confident that its just a matter of us coming to grips with conflict resolution in general and then finding our comfort zone in relation to scope.  Before our discussion I was confused as to which of the example lines in my post here would have been the correct answer for the stake.  Now I realize that any of them could be the correct answer, depending on what we like as a group.  I already know that we're gonna like things pretty small scale, somewhere right around the scope of your example.  We wouldn't be comfortable with "success=the money has been used to supply the ratkin tribe with weapons".  But your example suits our style.  Problem is, we probably wouldn't have come up with that right at the table on the fly.  Don't know why its so sticky for us right now but I'm gonna chalk it up to just needing more familarity with conflict resolution.  Hopefully stuff like that will become as second nature as coming up with Difficulty Checks in D&D on the fly.

Rafial-  Good point.  Yeah, nobody should assume that I know anything about narration authority when it comes to these games.  I sort of went into TSoY thinking that when a player wins a conflict that they just take over the scene for a while and the rest are along for the ride.  I now realize that it can certainly go that way but the GM has the right to modify the narration a little if need be.  And for that matter, the players don't even have to narrate anything.  I wasn't crystal clear on the fact that there was even a final authority in the game either.  That should help.

Again, thanks all for contributing.  These posts really are helping burn away some of the fog for me and I look forward to the day that I get to post a "Hey, we finally did it..." post.

Take care
Chris

May I just interrupt for a second and say that I think I understand exactly what you mean by not totally understanding the moment-to-moment play of these "new style" games. Cracking that code is all-important to understanding the games. It was very helpful for me to listen to this, an audio recording of a DitV-game: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18474.0

Best
Peter

Hey, thanks Peter.  Thats exactly the sort of thing I'd like to hear.  I'm gonna start downloading those files right away.  Thanks for jumping in here.

I have been experimenting with a specialized relationship map for my coming Heroquest sessions.

http://files.meetup.com/180731/dykene_relationships.JPG

I looked at the stated goals that each character put on their character sheets.  Then I laid out the major NPCs and thought of what they wanted to accomplish.  Then, I linked the two sets.  This gives me a forest of options to choose from and suggest avenues of action for the PCs.

Explicit relationship mapping helped.