Well-trod ground: Game/Narrative/Simulation

[Kalranya]

Jumping in here real quick to point out that Ron Edwards (the guy who cooked up the GNS model) has basically admitted that it's a load of troll drek and renounced his own theory. In its place, he has proposed what he's called The Big Model... which is still a load of crap but at least it's a better-informed load of crap.

[BigK42]

Oh man... Came in to check out what the IKRPG was all about, and found this thread. It's like stepping into a time machine. Anyways, I'm not going to stir the pot on this; taking things in a slightly different direction.

I think that a lot of the divisiveness, and the perception of "narrativist elitism" came from the fact that there had never been a roleplaying 'system' that catered to the more "narratavist" players, however you want to define that term. Lacking in definitiveness though it might be, there was a sufficiently broad group of people who had felt dissatisfied with the way that RPG systems were handling things, but they couldn't adequately explain the source of their dissatisfaction. GNS theory gave that group of people something concrete to explain their subjective perceptions. The "theory" subsequently fell apart when people broke out their logic scalpels and began cutting, but there may still be something to be learned from it, in regards to player motivation and game design. Regardless of the validity of the theory when viewed as an "explanation for everything," I think that anyone who has spent a sufficient amount of time in the "roleplaying community" can recognize player behavior profiles that fall in line with the extremes of the GNS axes, even if the overall reality is more nuanced.

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I said earlier that there are few systems that cater to "narrativist" play. Consider this question: "how does the system interact with plot advancement?" For many systems, this question provokes an almost visible question mark above many players' heads. The usual answer is "it doesn't, plot advancement is something that happens because of player decisions outside the scope of the system." Not all systems are like this though.

Consider a system's reaction to this barebones situation: "a monster appears in front of you." In most of the systems I've played, this sentence necesitates drawing a small map, breaking out dice, and preparing for a bout of turn-by-turn tabletop strategy.

As an alternative, I'll use the Polaris system. In Polaris, this sentence begins a round of negotiation, using certain key words. It might go something like this:

A: A monster appears in front of you.
B: I take that sucker down with my sword in a glorious display of martial skill!
A: BUT ONLY IF (key word) the monster comes back to haunt you as a ghost, following your every move...
B: Yuck. BUT ONLY IF I notice his sinister peeping and discover a way to exorcise him.

Aha. The 'system' allows for plot advancement at the same time it resolves the current dispute. The system also contains 'stats' that you roll against to decide things if you can't agree on a proper resolution, but even these lead to plot advancement - losing a roll increases your aptitude, but grants you an experience point. Gather too many experience points, and you fall into veteran status, which has certain implications for the plot (the game ends by either 1)character death, which can't occur before the character attains veteran status, 2) the character's renunciation of his core principles (same), or 3) the end of the world).

I was curious to see if the IKRPG had any of these system-plot connections. I assumed that it would be more in line with the "break out dice and draw a map" school of RPGs, but I thought I'd see if there was an interesting mechanic or two to pull from it.

[Sosthenes]

I think that a lot of the divisiveness, and the perception of "narrativist elitism" came from the fact that there had never been a roleplaying 'system' that catered to the more "narratavist" players, however you want to define that term.

Everway, Amber, parts of Fudge? Heck, didn't the whole "discussion" start by analyzing Everway?

The problem I've got with all these consequence interpretations of narrativism is that they a) assume a specific way of structuring plots, and b) introduce levels of meta-gaming that aren't that much better than bean-counting wargaming.

[Beckman]

While I really have enjoyed reading this thread.. I discovered, "Don't Rest Your Head". Even if I never play it, I find the concept hilarious. It also seems perfect for a one or two-shot game.

[Sosthenes]

If you're looking for games with a narrative bent, try looking up the works of Clinton R. Nixon. He usually manages to reign in the pretentiousness level and comes up with some interesting mechanics (And yes, that seems to be his real name).

[WarpedWolf]

Try Swashucklers of the Seven Skies or any of the PDQ games as well.

[StJason]

The problems with these is that you end up with 1) Some absurd ranking system. "Narritiveism is better then Gamism!" and then of course you end up with ranking within systems "Amber is better then Wod because it doesn't even have dice!". It's as if there is out there some 'pure' system where everyone sits around and comes up with a pure game system unconstrained by anything but they player's imaginations (There is, it's the old schoolyard game, "let's pretend"...). Of course, it also implies the same thing about other systems, as if there is a pure Gamist system where even what you say comes out in just dice rolls. Or maybe a pure Simulationist system which a world is set up completely (that sounds like the movies to me...)

Most gamers would agree, that while certain games, systems, groups, even players emphasize one or the other, most games are only really enjoyable with a mixture of all three. Few would enjoy a world they can't really affect, pure narritiveism only works when you are working without opposition (see: any schoolyard game like 'Cowboys and Indians'. "I shot you!" "I dodged!" "No you didn't!" "Yes I did!!" "You can't dodge bullets!" "*I* can!!") and while game mechanics are an abstraction and can slow things down, they also provide an unbiased term of fate (ie, that one-in-twenty chance of hitting that distant target, or the random chance that you will dodge a bullet...)

So, my point is not that you have a game that is one or the other... it's why don't you have enough of all three in there?

[Blackraine]

I think racking and stacking games is a purely subjective exercise, and I don't think there's really a way to change that. None of the three GNS nodes is, to me, something to strive for. I played a diceless game that used playing cards as the sole method of determing what happened... there were no mechanics beyond "my card is higher, therefore the thing I want to happen happens". It was a fun distraction for a few hours, but in the end, it wasn't campaign material. We weren't invested in our characters, because they lacked the capacity to do anything super cool and memorable (or, more specifically, since anything and everything they could do was super cool, none of it was particularly memorable). Literally the only thing I can remember about my character was that he was the spiritual personification of Scotland as a super hero, and he hit people with a giant Caber of Justice.

I've also played excessively crunchy systems, where looking up rules every 5 minutes hampered the game considerably. My favorite example is Shadowrun... great setting, absolutely awful rules that intrude upon the game like an Insurance Salesman at every opportunity. And then there's Burning Wheel... very Simulationist... fairly Narrative... and I hate it. Why? Because I tried to GM it. As it turns out, there are no good guidelines for character advancement... not even a "this is how much you should give out in an average session, which will allow characters to advance X far in Y months". Nothing to even ball park it. I was co-GMing with a friend (we each had our own "competing" groups that had to deal with each others goofs and such) and I found out after about 2 months that my fellow GM had been giving out like 3 times as much "exp" (it's actually way, way more complicated than anything as pedestrian as experience), and thus his group of people were essentially gods among men compared to my group. Every time I'd asked him (as he was the only one of the two of us that had run it before), he essentially gave me the same answer the book did: "Give whatever you think feels right." That's not a damn answer.

In the end, my favorite systems ended up being D&D 3.5, D&D 4th, L5R, and Deathwatch/Black Crusade (not Horus Heresy or Rogue Trader, though... they're practically unplayable at low levels due to the high probability of mortally wounding yourself if you try anything more complicated than breathing). I also like most White Wolf games, but I have to take some liberties with the rules anything but straight World of Darkness. The main reason I like those systems is that there's just enough crunch to make the game a game, but not so much that it intrudes upon the story or takes an abysmal amount of time to arbitrate the rules. I'm hoping that IKRPG will be the same way (I'm still waiting for any hint that IKRPG will have some way of mechanically dealing with non-combat things such as diplomacy or connections or stealing, etc). In the end, I think the best games are the ones that create a framework for the type of game you want to run, but which are still malleable enough that the GM can tweak what needs tweaking to support his particular story/setting.

[Sosthenes]

Most gamers would agree, that while certain games, systems, groups, even players emphasize one or the other, most games are only really enjoyable with a mixture of all three.

Note that the whole "debate" was started by the opposite suggestion, i.e. that the parts of the three-fold model are mutually exclusive. So if you want to play a narrative game, gamist and simulationist mechanics are ruining things. No happy middle ground for Story Games proponents…

Never mind that personally I'm not a middle ground person, either. Not that I don't like narrative elements, I just don't like them etched down in mechanics. Not even a big fan of the "gateway drug" for narrative gaming: action/bonus/force points. I don't like the additional level of meta-gaming, in that way I can even understand the Story Gamers - too much overhead, pick your "distractions". And I pick combat and physical skills. Especially the former actually benefits from a mechanical treatment, as it makes the moral conundrum vanish a bit in the background. I like my ethical quandaries in the game, but not on an all-pervasive level, which is why whittling down hit points provides a nice veil of abstraction. And it's the closest thing to a black/white situation you'll get in a story: You hit, you don't hit, you survive, you don't, you open the lock, you can't get through the door. I'm not even a big fan of mechanics involving social intercourse, as I find that too constraining, and determining even larger-scale things by rules seems even weirder to me.

The one thing I like the most about role-playing games is the utterly limitless and unconstrained nature of the evolving story, which is why I prefer sandbox gaming to even lightly applied three act adventure planning, or GM-led and planned heroic journeys. For once, you're not bound to cinematic or literary constraints. There doesn't have to be a consequence to everything, or a moral. RPGs allow you unfettered creative chaos. I don't want to turn them into a Masters of the Universe episode or a Michael Bay movie or Camus' "Stranger"…