What's your favorite Narrativist RPG, Anon?
You do play Narrativist games... right?
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What's your favorite Narrativist RPG, Anon? You do play Narrativist games... right?
First: Define 'narrativist,' for purposes of your shitty thread.
Short version: it's not stats-slop
Long version: trades tangibility of loot, items, monster stats and so on in favor of zero bookkeeping, insignificant downtime, and unique social mechanics that distribute narrative power among players and GM in unique ways, rather than just being "you failed the skillcheck, so uhh do somn' else"
Okay, thank you.
So to answer the original question: No. I have no interest in these kinds of games.
check em out, you might have an epiphany and fall in love like I did, or you might get ideas on how to better GM, or maybe even houserules
Dont shut yourself out of new information simply because of some image you think you need to maintain. Nobody's watching
My disinterest comes from having read into them some, for what it's worth. Certainly I've seen some interesting ideas. (I've a marked fondness for the core mechanics of Dog Eat Dog,) but the genre as a whole isn't much for me. Though there's some overlap in objectives between some and my playstyle.
Ultimately my circle is a very simulationist/wargame style set of groups. In the oldschool sense of 'wargame' in 'a scenario played out with the persons, materials, and situation established,' and not the new one of 'miniatures battle game.' Not that there isn't a lot of tactical grid combat going on, but you get the idea.
Likewise for 'simulationist' as intended as 'the point is the maintain the structure and verisimilitude of the setting and characters,' and not how it's now used as 'game with autistic ballistics table.'
Both of these lean heavily on tangibility, and I don't think I need mechanics to 'distribute narrative power.' Mechanics for that are interesting, but I think more a response to most games GM section just teaching people wrong as a joke.
Oh yeah, if you already found your niche (and it happens to be the complete opposite end of the spectrum to boot) then it's settled
Just making sure because tons of people on /tg/ are very stubborn and won't change their habits, even if it might make their experience better
That's fair. It is nonsensical to just declare you don't like something without even reading it. At least the first few times, as genres exist for a reason.
>Complete opposite end of the spectrum
This amuses me because for all I've talked to narrativist players, we always seem to ultimately value roughly the same overall sort of things, but despise each others way of getting there.
At least we can laugh at gamists together.
Are you sure wargaming is simulationist though?
I've always thought of simulationist games to be stuff like Riddle of Steel, where instead of HP (like in a gamist RPG) you have injuries, and bleeding, and shock. Plus the combat is trying to emulate HEMA techniques and all that jazz.
I think wargames are gamist bro
If you define wargaming as 'miniature combat games,' which I specifically stated above I do not, if you missed it.
Likewise simulationism under the old GNS theory is about value of verisimilitude and 'fictional integrity,' not 'realistic mechanics,' which I also already said.
Hmm I guess so.
Anyways lmaoing at the absolute state of DnDgays
Oh yeah I forgot to say frick you homosexual for calling my thread shitty
I meant what I said, but you've actually posted and talked about shit unlike most of the homosexual ops around here, so I conditionally take it back.
great now I'm forced to take back MY insult and we also have to kiss
/tg/ is a very low openness board
you're looking at a gathering of individuals who've been doing the same thing for 30 years
the curiosity levels are at zero here
Nah, he's dealing with the consequences of being a massive homosexual. Aside from dredging up dumb scene drama OP's such a smug cum-gargling shitter that I'd automatically be contemptuous of narrative games by association if it weren't for the fact that I already like them. Execution is everything and this thread is less than worthless in terms of promoting different playstyles.
literally what is wrong with Ron Edwards besides him being a lil zesty
It conflates player motivation and the ends of play with systemic design choices and means of play. WotC surveyed this and their taxonomy doesn't line up with GNS at all.
So, games like Vampire, which don't line up with GNS end up as targets of autistic screeching about incoherence and brain damage. When instead, they're counterexamples towards the limitations (and dare I say uselessness) of GNS as a theory to design and classify systems, or understand player motivation.
>guy came up with theory
>others use it to shitpost
You still haven't said what's wrong with Ron
He was a pretentious shitflinger himself; it wasn't just other people. His old posts from the Forge were linked earlier itt.
>you're looking at a gathering of individuals who've been doing the same thing for 30 years
If you mean "playing tabletop role-playing games" then yes.
As I've grown wiser I've moved away from the crunchy, stat-infested hellscapes of simulationist TTRPGs and to the wide-open prairies of narrative TTRPGs. If I desire something more simulationist I'll sit down and play a wargame or a board game or go play a CRPG or JRPG.
To put a finer point on this, 30 years ago I was playing D&D B/E and then AD&D. 25 years ago I was playing Star Wars D6, Alternity, Traveller, Werewolf, Vampire, RIFTS, Cyberpunk 2020, and so forth. I won't bother hitting every interval but these days I *still* play D&D despite hating it because it is a social activity. But I also play a bunch of other things, that live on a varied spectrum of crunch, but almost all are narrativist games.
What you ascribe to /tg/'s nature is really an aspect of the nature of conservatives, of which there are an unusually high representation on Ganker relative to the real world.
Nta but I’ve went from appreciating “narrative” rpgs to despising them as I got older because they are bad at their ultimate goal.
And you vote conservative. Thank you for supporting my argument.
I don’t.
Don't vote, got it.
>As I've grown wiser I've moved away from the crunchy, stat-infested hellscapes of simulationist TTRPGs and to the wide-open prairies of narrative TTRPGs.
I feel as though that's more a people problem then anything. I will concede, simulationist systems will probably enable said problem more. GURPS for example is very statbloat and has a million different rules, it's certainly daunting for a new player.
But on the flipside a lot of the crunch can be handwaved without real consequence and all the statbloat can be done for you by having some Walmart craptop with GSC. Yet I still have the crunch available for when I want it.
Now I'm not going to pretend I've played any narrativist systems. I'm only familiar with three systems and one of them was a couple campaigns about 8 years ago.
So rather than assert, I will ask. What about it helps me as a GM or as a player?
>What you ascribe to /tg/'s nature is really an aspect of the nature of conservatives
Well there is certainly some truth it, I wouldn't say it's so cut and dry. Real life examples that go everywhich combination aside, you could use as an example Reddit. They are a website that is majority liberal, but they are a very conformist lot. That said I can't really list any large scale group of innovative conservatives.
You left wing leaning parasite, you expect me to sit here and listen to your drivel
Phelps-sama, please understand.... I'm no liberal...
>But on the flipside a lot of the crunch can be handwaved without real consequence
Then why bother with it in the first place? If you aren't going to use it, play something that doesn't require you as the GM to axe 90% of the rules in the first place.
>What about it helps me as a GM or as a player?
As a GM, it leaves less work on your end. Prep is easier because there's less crunch to fiddle with (and if you use something like Roll20 or Foundry, making your own coded sheets to do the math for you and working within those limitations depending on the platform, even Google sheets/Spreadsheets have their limits unless you're a god with them), running the game is easier because all aspects of play are more straightforward, and having a simple starting point means if you want more you can build onto it rather than chipping away and worrying about pulling out the essential jenga block that topples the whole system.
As a player, it gives you more control over your rolls through metacurrencies like fate points or similar to allow for re-rolls if you've been having a bad streak of luck or really need to pass a check in a key moment, gives you more flexibility in how you solve problems because you aren't reliant on having a big number, instead relying on your ability to think outside the box, and generally leads to more varied and creative character options, sometimes up to borderline freeform abilities where you work with the GM and other players to craft unique features for your character; you aren't bound by the hard limits of the system.
>That said I can't really list any large scale group of innovative conservatives.
I'd argue it's less actual conservatives and more /misc/shitter tourists. /tg/ used to be very creative and open, back circa 2018 I got good feedback and even some players/playtesters from /tg/ for my own original TTRPGs, but I wouldn't dare in this day and age.
> I'd argue it's less actual conservatives and more /misc/shitter tourists.
No, that’s not it either. I’ve visited a /tg/ board on another site that’s fill with what can arguably be called Nazis and they have better discussion than we do. The real issue is the mentality.
Modern /tg/ treat is being as a battleground and content farm instead of a comfy place to have fun and be constructive. Hell we have one dumbass that thinks it’s his personal mission to defend D&D from imaginary trolls. People really underestimate how much worse the userbase is.
>Then why bother with it in the first place? If you aren't going to use it, play something that doesn't require you as the GM to axe 90% of the rules in the first place.
I wouldn't really describe it as deliberately axing rules, it usually ends up being the reverse. I forget about the non-core rules until something until there's a concept I really want to utilize. In most scenarios there is no reason me to remember how prolonged exposure to below freezing weather effects players, not even for all instances it could apply. Like if I was doing a comfy Christmas campaign, it'd go against the mood of the campaign. But down the road I was hoping to run a campaign about a hidden research lab in Antarctica that gone wrong. And there would be perfect to include such rules.
>As a GM, it leaves less work on your end. Prep is easier because there's less crunch to fiddle with (and if you use something like Roll20 or Foundry, making your own coded sheets to do the math for you and working within those limitations depending on the platform, even Google sheets/Spreadsheets have their limits unless you're a god with them), running the game is easier because all aspects of play are more straightforward, and having a simple starting point means if you want more you can build onto it rather than chipping away and worrying about pulling out the essential jenga block that topples the whole system.
That is fair. It also seems faster to set up a campaign. Which is one thing one of my players has gotten after me more. Also doesn't help I have terrible work ethic.
fuggin post limit gimme a minute
>As a player, it gives you more control over your rolls through metacurrencies like fate points or similar to allow for re-rolls if you've been having a bad streak of luck or really need to pass a check in a key moment, gives you more flexibility in how you solve problems because you aren't reliant on having a big number.
I was gonna give an essay blogpost on how I'm a cruel GM who enjoys seeing a failed roll for a cheap laugh. But then I remembered I sometimes like to include the Luck advantage as freebie for everyone. So that'd just make me a huge hypocrite.
>Instead relying on your ability to think outside the box, and generally leads to more varied and creative character options, sometimes up to borderline freeform abilities where you work with the GM and other players to craft unique features for your character; you aren't bound by the hard limits of the system.
I like this one actually. Not sure what system you are using, or how it'd work there, but it's a pretty agreeable claim. Like if you can't find a rule, or don't have time to find one, then by all means have the group agree on something that's fair. Which usually means the 2 people who actually know the rules come up with something and the rest nod there head because it sounds cool.
>I'd argue it's less actual conservatives and more /misc/shitter tourists. /tg/ used to be very creative and open, back circa 2018 I got good feedback and even some players/playtesters from /tg/ for my own original TTRPGs, but I wouldn't dare in this day and age.
The laziest solution that'd work would be if the mods just decided to put the thread IDs that /b/ used to have on every board. Probably wouldn't fix every board. But on a relatively slow board like /tg/ it'd certainly help.
You're investing far too much sincerity into an obviously passive-aggressive baiter. In any case have fun doing your thing with likeminded friends.
>whimsical OP
>IT'S BAIT AND PASSIVE AGGRESSION
meds
The Forge crowd spent years poisoning the well. If you're an oldgay, this sort of thing is obviously coming to come across as baiting.
And in 2023, the only real reason to bring up Edwards specifically is to troll and bait a flamewar over GNS.
The point of such flamewars is to filter out touchy homosexuals like you, so the bros stand out and get revealed. Bullying for this purpose is at the basis of human interaction.
TL;DR: FILTERED
Don't you have /slop/ to be posting?
Damn, just how many different "factions" live in your head rent-free?
Pictured: the bros
>Damn, just how many different "factions" live in your head rent-free?
This post sponsored by NOGAMES GANG
Your description sounds like dogshit, so I have no interest in those.
But like most posts on this shithole of a site, it's extremist garbage and like most things in life moderation is key.
Stats are fine and good, they help create defined rules and standards for the players to work with and help mechanically define what the characters are good and bad at with hard rules, while mechanics like re-rolls or fate points or whatever can be added to them to give players some control and make for an overall more enjoyable play experience.
>like most things in life moderation is key
and you're a midwit too so it's very poetic of you to take that stance
Extremists are all on the left side of the bell curve though
It can be fun to toy with outliers for variety's sake and the better understand how each aspect of a system influences a the experience. OP and absolutist morons like him remain insufferable Black folk of course.
t. non-white gamist absolutist
Eh, not really my cup of tea. I think mechanics actually make it a game. There doesn't even need to be a terrible amount of them, but the element of chance is crucial.
Narrativist games all have mechanics. Some pretty complicated and elaborate.
Some of them seem pretty scant, beyond bare bones for that.
Doesn't mean anything. Some trad games are extremely bare bones aswell, such as original D&D.
The easiest way to recognize a game with a narrativist bent is to look at whether it has a "task" or an "action" resolution system like typical traditional games, or some sort of a "conflict" resolution.
The thing with non-trad games is people play them wrong. They try to play them like D&D and it doesn't work.
>Doesn't mean anything.
It means a lot, actually. They're just pure wankfests and they don't appeal to me.
You didn't get it. The amount of mechanics has nothing to do with a game being narrativist or not.v
>The amount of mechanics has nothing to do with a game being narrativist or not.
Sure it does.
Nope.
NTA but you're objectively incorrect. It's about the types of mechanics involved.
Character interplay vs mechanics interplay, so basically your world of darkness and powered by apocalypse types? Right?
Not him but many narrativist RPGs have rules that govern who has the narrative power. If you do X thing according to the Y attribute of your character, then you have GM-level fiat for the situation ( can even affect others and the environment ), for example.
No. The Forge storygame crowd had an autistic hate boner for World of Darkness for calling itself a storytelling game, but not using meta mechanics that defined "narratives games" in their taxonomy.
homies were comparing Storyteller to "brain damage" and "child abuse", because of this "incoherence".
PbtA would be narrativist. vampire the Masquerade would be gamist or simulationist , depending on how much the Forge wanted to shit on it that day, in their eyes.
They were correct. Vtm is exactly like d&d in that it’s a fully traditional game. The gm being called ”storyteller” doesn’t change the mechanical facts.
That would imply that GNS is a particularly useful or coherent framework for ttrpg taxonomy and design or player motivations and personality types. It isn't. MDA is more coherent and useful for game design, and any time ttrpg players are surveyed, their motivations and enjoyment don't break down along GNS lines. Which leaves just a post hoc taxonomy that breaks down outside of the genre it invented.
Are the shared editorial authority storygames that came out of the Forge's narrow interest in and definition of "narrativism" interesting? Yeah, absolutely. It's not like their criticisms of traditional roleplaying campaigns came out of nowhere: the OSR theorists had a very similar slew of complaints, but went about solving them down a very different direction.
Them being correct about vtm doesn't imply their fart-huffing theory is valid.
I find narrativist games fun, and gamist min/maxing slogs boring. Dont know why that makes me wrong
Gamist and Simulationist aren't coherent categories. Narrativist is, but only because it's a set of games that came out of the groupthink of the posters of a particular forum.
In practice, G and S were just used to dismiss games that forum wasn't interested in or didn't enjoy. You see this here in your response: is the problem that the so-called "simulationist" game is trying to simulate something? No, the actual problem which you allude to, is the cognitive overload of lots of charts and exceptions when performing task resolution.
To call such games "simulationist" only serves to obscure analysis. If you've played a good wargame, you ought to know that it doesn't take complex rules to incentivize historical tactics and produce historical results.
>Gamist and Simulationist aren't coherent categories
Gamist: Hit Points, level-ups, armor makes you harder to hit
Simulationist: Injuries, infection, HEMA shit, armor is simulated with penetration and all that
You: midwit in full dunning-kruger mode
Your taxonomy is just "abstract" vs "fiddly". All you're contending, mechanically, is that more states=simulation, fewer states=gamey, which doesn't tell us anything, or give a designer design goals - worse the contention that "more states and steps = simulation" is bad advice.
Get out of the RPG ghetto. This has been done to death in wargaming. If I want to make a skirmish wargame about handgun shootouts, I can just use DGU and police academy data and fit those percentages onto a single D20 roll. A binary health state of might simulate it better than a bunch of intermediary injury states. Hex and chit games often produce historically accurate results with 2d6 and a small matrix.
Simulation doesn't mean "Got a Dear John letter: -3% morale".
...I literally just proved the opposite in the post you're replying to. Are you just unable to understand what you read or are you trolling?
>Narrativist games all have mechanics.
No, they don't.
Name one that doesn't.
see
You talk shit about things you know nothing about. Peak moron
Fate Core>Fate Accelerated/Condensed. It manages to simulate plot conventions without being too abstract. Other versions of Fate feel a bit too bare bones, I get wanting a stripped down version of something crunchy like GURPS but Fate?
>Define 'narrativist
A term used by RPG Devs to describe RPGs that are focused on story telling and role play elements as opposed to trying to simulate the "reality" of whatever it is that happens in the game world.
Millennial humor= Student loans amirite?
Gen Z humor= I'm so gay/pan/trans/whatever lol
Gen Alpha= Skibidi toilet
yes
It's when your pronouns matter more than your stats.
Dogs in the Vineyard. You can't get it any more without pirating it since its creator had a schizo meltdown.
kek what'd he fricking do
I'm not surprised at all considering the game is about fricking Mormons of all communities, but I'm still curious about the details
NTA but if I remember right be had some leftist moral panic and decided all the Mormonist elements were too 'problematic' or some shit. As if half the fun of a narrative-driven game wasn't exploring attitudes and world views that you yourself do not hold in a harmless context.
Pic unrelated
>makes extremely kino game
>trump derangement syndrome kicks in and author kills the kino
many such cases
>many such cases
>this is the sole discernible case
what did he mean by this?
When I only got one player I take out Trollbabe. That system is so fricking smooth for 1 GM and 1 player it's unreal
feels like gen x and millennial are swapped there
Millennials and Gen X arguably both own the 'I'm so sad I'm a lazy piece of shit and hate myself' """"""""""humor"""""""""" style.
>arguably
they also own that word
gen z always winning
>Dogs in the Vineyard
Same. Love this system.
What's the ideal player count for DiTV?
Three or four. Probably four.
>What's the ideal player count for DiTV?
3-4.
>People were already using DitV for things like 40k inquisitors, Jedi, and other religious authority type games, so a generic version of it made sense.
Can confirm.
Someone made a generic version that I think is literally just called Dogs. Same mechanics and concepts, less Mormonism. People were already using DitV for things like 40k inquisitors, Jedi, and other religious authority type games, so a generic version of it made sense.
The creator is an anti-Mormon/LDS lunatic. He lost his mind during the Trump presidency.
1.) Everyone here already knows that.
2.) It doesn't matter because we'd just pirate it, anyway.
wow, what got you so upset out of nowhere?
you sure you dont have trump derangement syndrome yourself?
>The creator is an anti-Mormon
>makes a game about Mormons
unless he's israeli this makes no sense
It deliberately misrepresents them.
he's israeli
now it makes sense
>IF YOU DON'T PLAY GAMES IN MY HIGHLY SPECIFIC WAY, YOU'RE BRAIN DAMAGED
Good riddance.
very mentally sane post
If you've ever said that "D&D causes brain damage", you're misquoting Edwards. Originally, he was complaining about VtM, not D&D.
http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=18707.0
I never said that, but I did say you require brain damage to play non-OSR dnd
>I never said that, but I did say you require brain damage to play OSR dnd
there, i fixed it for you
normal dnd is just furry ERP for normies, quiet homosexual
I play games that interest me and avoid players who present themselves as compulsively codifying buttholes like you.
My favorite narrativist RPG is freeform ERP, which actually used to be fairly popular form of roleplay on this very board circa 2011-2015
no
i dont play such slop no
I play what I like. And I hate the division The Forge made. Gamism isn't about "winning" the game. You can win the fight, but not the game. Being a minmaxer is fun to some while others enjoy RP. Both can be in the same group.
Narrative can happen in any game. From D&D to L5R to PbtA. Sure, D&D is mainly a combat game, always will be. But story is important.
Simulationist I never understand. The way they define it is "internal consistency of genre or inspiration" in which "players do not act on out of character information". CoC is a simulationist game apparently.
But is it? It's mainly about the narrative. It's about characters. It's about developing them. That's the focus. Is it the stats?
What about Ryuutama? It has stats, so can't be narrativist, but not enough to be gamist or simulationist. It's about exploration and the setting first and foremost. So where does that fit?
How about L5R? Sure, LOTS of stats, but ultimately it's about the story. So it's simulationist, yea? Since it's about being a samurai. But again, what's the difference? Is it the stats?
A system, from 5e to CoC to PbtA, is to help facilitate the game. Some focus more on story and characters (PbtA, CoC), some more on combat (D&D), some on travel and the world (Ryuutama). But all can be used for all purposes. Not for all genres (Ryuutama for example isn't good in high science or magic settings, D&D can't do hard science fiction but can do science fantasy, and so on), but can facilitate a variety of playstyles.
I played a huge number of games over the decades and enjoyed them all. So what am I, not fitting in the neat boxes?
TL:DR; The GNS theory sucks.
No, because Narrative-only games are objectively dogshit and they tank the industry literally every time they come to the forefront. Look forward to the bubble bursting yet again.
I have no idea what a narrativist game is so I couldn't tell you if I play them or not.
Polaris I suppose.
Apocalypse World is pretty much the only good story shit. Its all about drama and forcing drama and keeping things moving and tense. Its really difficult to run and to get in the mindset. It's the first RPG to really capture my imagination with its implied setting. At least since DnD when i was a kid.
you tried any other PbtA game?
I cant get into them because, despite the main mechanic being elegant, everything else isn't. Classes and their abilities are extremely clunky
They're all the same basically.
If you're actually playing a narrativist game, you most likely dont give much of a shit about the system, and are either playing a game entirely for the pre-built setting (cringe) or just using something that provides a resolution mechanic that is simple and unobtrusive (based) for which there are dozens of functionally indistinct systems.
>narrativist means light game
moron
I'm trying to get the division straight in my head. Say you were working on a mechanic to handle the deprivation of basic needs such as sleep or food:
- A gamist would be thinking about the resource-management process, and might design a penalty balanced with the opportunity cost of getting food or good rest,
- A simulationist would consider the most sensible in-universe consequence, and then come up with an abstract representation of it,
- While a narrativist might instead be interested in invoking a player's exhaustion in a dramatic moment to create an interesting situation.
Is that a good example at all?
I can imagine all three approaches leading to similar mechanics, so they seem more like approaches to game design than styles of play.
Correct. That's why GNS is an unhelpful theiey. In the discourse in practice, gamist is just where systems the Forge didn't want to talk about were classified for reasons other than crunchy tables of situational modifiers (simulationist, which they also just didn't want to talk about - but had a alibi).
Detroit Become Human
you're gonna lpay My Life With Master and youre gonna love it.
looks kino
does it work solo? My group has zero brain for grasping new shit, I learned that the hard way (many times over)
qrd?
It’s kinda like a cold-war suicide squad/A-team game. Play a bunch of supernatural mercenaries doing crazy missions. Had a really successful kickstarter recently.
Gameplay wise it’s a mix of PbtA success-with-consequences narrative stuff over a skeleton built for OSR-style death-funnels.
Chargen is super quick, and if your character dies you just roll for how well the next one gets inserted into the mission, via para-drop, enemy mine or coming up from the sewers.
Every character is two of d666 traits and one of d66 advancement conditions. The traits give you stat buffs (or debuffs if they’re otherwise OP), special abilities and equipment.
> d666, d66.
why stop there, why not d6666???
That's about a thousand more traits to write.
Thanks, I'll give it a look
star wars ffg is a nice narrativist ttrpg.
agreed, swFFG or Genesys is a nice blending of narrative mechanics onto a still reasonably meaty frame
I like the narrativist game i made because i made it. Otherwise they feel somewhat hit or miss
>play Dresden Files RPG
>make my highest stat Intimitation
>pick up all the Emotion powers
>blast people with fear beams to damage their mental HP until the DM has to send mindless undead at me
I don't think I'm playing right.
Not really. I feel that narrative should emerge from player decisions, player-world interactions, not rules that attempt to steer the story.
>player decisions, player-world interactions
And you believe these don't happen in narrative games because..?
These games discourage meaningful interaction with an imagined world. Any random bullshit is one "success with consequences" away from being true rather than the Ref or players actually needing to consider what would happen if X happened. That's why I like the OSR method of making a ruling on the fly, sometimes involving dice rolls but only in cases which are inherently random, or otherwise hard to adjudicate.
Completely untrue so I don't really know what to say, you're just making things up about a genre you clearly know nothing about.
There are plenty of narrative games where you often don't get what you want, characters can die, there are big consequences because the mechanics are made TO have big consequences instead of being just a skillcheck and combat system and leaving everything up to how good your GM is, etc etc.
You're just wrong. You're literally saying 2+2=5 and I've no idea where to start in telling you you're a fricking idiot
>made TO have big consequences
This just feels cheap to me.
It's like the difference between collaboratively writing a story while being in charge of a character, and roleplaying as that character, or the difference between the game starting with you writing down your character's beliefs, and your character's beliefs being implicit in the way you interact with the world.
I admit I have only had limited experience with narrative games (just Dungeon World with one GM) but it felt like the magic in the fiction was drained out through narrative mechanics. I'd like to spend some more time with the tradition to get a better idea of where you're coming from.
kek now you're moving goalposts from "it has no consequences" to "uhhhh that sounds LE FORCED"
You just proved your entire knowledge of the subject is this argument right here that we're having. You really do have no clue what you're talking about
I didn't say no consequences (success with consequences is literally consequences), I said random bullshit. I meant that the games aren't about learning something about the world by touching it, they're about coming up with "what happens next" as a cool narrative instead of as an interaction with something we pretend is concrete and outside of us.
alright since you're clearly not listening, here's what you want to hear:
never try anything new. It's all bad.
Things you already know: good. Things you don't know: bad.
Keep at it, bro.
you sure had strong opinions for somebody with next to zero experience with the subject
If I were you I'd look more into that personality trait of yours, doesn't seem li
-ke a good one. Autopost got me good
Don't waste any more time on these games, Anon. Your understanding is entirely correct. Narrativist systems completely miss the point of RPGs. Everything that happens in them is manufactured
>inb4 OP says everything is manufactured in all types of systems
You don't get it and probably never will.
OP is a homosexual. I'd suspect him of being a disingenuous shitter salting the earth to encourage backlash but generic attention-grabbing c**tishness is likelier. For what it's worth DW is crap and basically fails to do what DnD or AW does well because it exists as a cash-grab. Dogs in the Vineyard's very much what you want if you're after trying some of the best the approach has to offer but even then if "directing" your character doesn't suit you as much as directly inhabiting them then it's no biggie. The only people who'd belittle you for it (or conversely shit on you for not playing their way
) are beneath contempt.
Just trying to save him some time since he already understands the issue. If he doesn't like the core philosophy of storygames he won't get anything from playing them more.
X being true in someone's circumstances is more nuanced than "entirely correct". If that's what you were trying to get across then my apologies for the misunderstanding. Still worth trying literally anything but DW by way of experimentation though, I can't think of many systems that're worse.
>These games discourage meaningful interaction with an imagined world
Untrue. In fact, they encourage more meaningful interaction because they encourage the players to get invested in their characters, unlike some OSR/TSR wargame clone slop where PCs are expendable.
>Any random bullshit is one "success with consequences" away from being true
HYTNPD&D? Because narrative systems usually operate on degrees of success rather than pass/fail. You usually have "No, and" which means you not only fail, but also suffer additional penalties/consequences, "No" which means you simply don't get what you want, "Yes, which means you succeed and get what you want, and "Yes, and" which means you get what you want and them some (a critical success). If anything they give greater variety to outcomes.
>the Ref
The GM is not a referee, especially in Narrative systems. They want to see the player succeed while also challenging them
>needing to consider what would happen if X happened
Narrative systems rely on this more than other systems where all you do is roll dice + modifiers.
>That's why I like the OSR method of making a ruling on the fly
Then you should love narrative systems, because that's a lot of them.
>sometimes involving dice rolls but only in cases which are inherently random
That's not what dice are for, dice are for when the outcome is in question.
>otherwise hard to adjudicate.
So your players are literally just playing a big old game of GM may I? Entirely at your mercy? Sounds like dogshit.
>expendable
I don't think this is incompatible with investment; it's fun to come up with new characters. I'm pretty sure there are high lethality narrative games too.
>degrees of success
I think I was being too harsh on this (wrapping it up with other ideas). However I do think that hard failure creates interest by redirecting the party to consider alternative ideas, and that a series of binary results modeling aspects of an event gives more granularity than wrapping it into a single roll.
>just [...] GM may I?
Not without a level of trust and open communication. It's improvisation, circumscribed by a few hard rules, and kept moving by a Ref.
Thanks anon. I can see how a better designed game would more able to fulfill the promise of modeling a kind of fiction by using a set of moves, and I've heard good things about DitV. It's on my list.
>I don't think this is incompatible with investment;
It certainly is; there's no point in getting invested if you're just going to crumple the sheet up 5 minutes in. Your character amounts to the relevance to the narrative of a stormtrooper; expendable, faceless, pointless outside of dying.
>I'm pretty sure there are high lethality narrative games too.
That's an oxymoron. You can't have a narrative if the core cast of characters are constantly shifting because they drop dead every 5 seconds.
>However I do think that hard failure creates interest by redirecting the party to consider alternative ideas
That's what the middle degree of failure is; in fact, you have two degrees as I said. You have "No" which is the traditional fail on a pass/fail binary and also "No, and" which means the character not only fails, but also imposes additional consequences alongside simply failing. Either option is still failure, it's just one is worse than the other and can force even more consideration because now you've not only failed but suffered an additional setback, whereas with pass-fail it just becomes either "we're going to all roll this check until we succeed" or "The result is too final and now we're fricked and have been completely locked out of this with no recourse".
>a series of binary results modeling aspects of an event gives more granularity than wrapping it into a single roll.
You act like you can't have both, and that most systems don't have both. Degrees of success is just more granularity, following the same general idea of pass-fail but with more results.
> It's improvisation, circumscribed by a few hard rules
That's literally what narrative systems are. It's improvisation, circumscribed by a few hard rules.
>kept moving by a Ref.
This is the difference, the players are not at the GM's mercy, they have more control, which as a GM I think is a great thing because I'm not writing a novel, I'm playing a game with my friends.
All the time. I'm an adult with other responsibilities so it's nice to just have a vehicle for telling some stories with my bros in the span of 4-5 hours.
Every time I've agreed to play something like DnD for old time's sake I was amazed at just how long everything took. Going through multiple levels of a dungeon while fighting waves of monsters on a tactical grid and constantly divvying loot and checking everywhere for traps worked great when I was 14 and could play from noon to midnight, but it really doesn't anymore.
>like hyper lethal campaigns
>like roleplaying expendable and usually shortlived characters with a clearly defined gimmicks
>also want said characters to mechanically behave exactly as they should, for good or shit. (IE if I play a food wizard, I want cooking spells, not just normal spells with hollow reflavoring)
Ok where do I fit into the GNS bullshit?
GNS is about game mechanics and you haven't listed any, so I can't tell
Explain, I thought horoscope for tabletop
Gamist RPG: Hit points, loot, armor classes, levels, combat geared towards extensive dungeon crawling. Essentially think of videogame action RPGs, they're that but in tabletop form.
Narrative RPG: Abstracts many concepts, bookkeeping and stats are kept to a minimum, has actually codified mechanics for narrative aspects (whereas gamist RPG books are just skillchecks, combat rules, but no rules that limit the GM, for example)
Simulationist: very detailed combat, injuries instead of HP (think of how in a Gamist RPG your character is perfectly functional even at 1 HP), your wounds can get infected, in-depth simulated stuff like armor penetration and different types of damage like thrust/slash and whatever
Having strong opinions on something you know nothing about. The mark of the moron.
>injuries instead of HP (think of how in a Gamist RPG your character is perfectly functional even at 1 HP)
GURPS has HP though, you can even live past 0 HP. Granted things like bleed or speed halving at 1/3 hp can be features unless you want a more cinematic.
I never mentioned GURPS so I don't know what point you're trying to make here
>Having strong opinions on something you know nothing about. The mark of the moron.
Look in the mirror. The whole thread is nothing but your attention-whoring.
GNS is best left in the dustbin of history.
Narrativism is the coherent part. Narrativist games, or storygames, are games that focus on shared editorial authority over a scope of the game broader than one's own character.
Gamism, as you describe, is just a jumble of more abstract mechanics. It's not a style, it's not a design goal. Nobody in the broader game design sphere, vidya, board games, etc, sets out to make a "gamey" game. The concept is nonsensical, operating in the broader category of games.
Simulationist. Simulation is a game-design goal. It''s not about details per se; it's about outcomes that reflect correspond to some model - often real life. If Weapon System A has a kill-probability of 0.8, it doesn't really matter how you get there. If you got out of the RPG ghetto and into historical wargaming, where emulating historical results is a common game design goal, mechanics that produce historical outcomes can be very simple. You don't need to rivet count or have long tables of modifiers to produce - or simulate - historical outcomes. In fact, you want to keep it as a simple and elegant as possible while preserving historicity; picking the right mechanic for the job. That's simulation; not clunky tables of bullshit that Forgetards claim it is.
GNS isnt supposed to be a horoscope for already-released games to fll onto, you absolute utter 2-digiter.
It's a concept for designing new games, stating that they should stick to one style
>It's a concept for designing new games,
And it's even more shit from that perspective. They genuinely innovated on the Narrativist side with all those meta-mechanics for sharing authority that was fully vested in the referee or GM in traditional RPGs. Full credit where it's due. That was cool, that was something new.
Simulation is not a mechanic. It's not. Conflating fiddly procedures with simulation just isn't accurate. Inasmuch as G&S are coherent styles (they aren't), GNS offers nothing to design a system.
System design is a process of aligning the mechanics and procedures of play towards incentivizing and disincentivizing player behaviors. Threefold theory doesn't concern itself with these actual nuts, bolts, and strategies of game design. Calling the threefold model a horoscope for already released games is generous, because it's not a good framework otherwise.
>should stick to one style
Which isn't even good advice, because the most historically successful and long-lived systems don't. Take out the D&D-shaped elephant in the room and Vampire, CoC, WFRP don't fit neatly into G&S boxes. In practice, the incoherent game wins. What's up with that? Which just turns into Forgetards blaming the players for their revealed preferences not lining up with GNS and the Threefold model.
Another reason why it's a shit theory.
You decided to die on this hill of anti-GNS and so you're grasping at straws while making no sense, sad to see.
It takes a special kind of midwit to say so little with so many words
Okay, actual game design scenario: You have a game with a focus on simulating WW2 infantry combat with d% roll under You've tried to line up your numbers with data on small arm effectiveness. However, instead of historical tactics like machine guns and rifles, the players are reaching for satchel charges and flamethrowers to a far greater extent.
With a goal of making equipment selection less ahistorical, how do you use GNS to identify the problem and decide on a direction to change the game?
Simple, you make satchel charges and flamethrowers harder to get your hands on, because the average infantryman does not and did not, in fact, have flamethrowers and satchel charges. Those are specialized tools for specialized roles.
Everything he says make sense. You’re just stupid.
He asked you to list game mechanics you like.
Are you actually interested in finding out where you fit in the GNS or are you just here to shitpost? Tell us what game mechanics you like and we'll tell you where you fit
>like point buy systems because I can just kinda keep extra characters ready to use
>don't like point buy because no one else does this so they take forever
>like having mental disadvantages. (Do you want specific ones?) Because I am forced to roleplay what I signed up for
>prefer the AC system of dnd to gurps DR system
>whether we use survivable guns depends entirely on the mood of the campaign
>I like how certain skills can be used in place of other skills at a penalty
I'm not a big thinker anon, how much stuff do you want me to list
Power Gamer, according to the WotC taxonomy (and they were the only people who actually bothered to ask TTRPG players and collect the results)
It's not even about that, because it doesn't even describe game mechanics. Not that it ever cared to. The idea of "Gamism" is silly when you think about the precedence of categories.
GNS is set back TTRPG design back by at least a decade. It's archaic, nonsensical, and while storygames are interesting - game design outside RPGs has not only moved past it and provides better frameworks to conceptualize it like Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics.
>Power Gamer
But I don't WAAC
Go play OSR/TSR.
shame on you for that awful recommendation
that guy's a Special Ed kid turned shitposter, but he's still human. No human deserves to be put through that slop
Hey if the motherfricker wants to have the most miserable experience possible that's what he's gotta do.
The GNS theory might not be a definitive theory, but the most people criticising it can't even explain why it's supposed to be bad. It's trendy to trash it. They've seen on the internet that the theory is refuted or something along those lines, and simply parrot that.