What makes an TTRPG a "Narrative Game" (Daggerheart Discussion)

[pemerton]

We're digressing, but I suppose you accept the the theory of evolution?

Sure. Things don't involve in continua, though. For instance, wolverines, dogs and thylacines all have a common ancestor, but I doubt it was a mammalian quadruped carnivore.

I don't know about the evolution of wolverines and dogs, but it wouldn't surprise me if their common ancestor is not a mammalian quadruped carnivore either.

You may be able to find a continuum from some ancestor species to dogs. Likewise in respect of thylacines. These will not be a single continuum on which both dogs and thylacines are located.

I should add, I am assuming that "continuum" is being used in something like the ordinary sense of "a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, but the extremes are quite distinct" (thanks Google) or, as I would tend to think of it, "closely resembling, or being isomorphic to, the real number line".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You mean like AD&D and Rolemaster?

Sure.

I have no idea whether you are doing narrativist RPGing or not. I mean, you seem to repeatedly deny that you are, and so I take you at your word. I don't know enough about the details of your play to form a considered view.

My point is that there are no such clearcut lines. Even if we had a coherent definition of narrativism (which I still somewhat doubt) narrativist elements can appear in games to different degrees. So it is not whether something is or isn't narrativist, it is how narrativist it is.

One thing that I notice, though, is this: when I read Edwards, Czege etc talking about techniques for scene-framing, narrativist play and the like I was blown away. Not all of it made sense at first - because I lacked the experience of a sufficient variety of RPGs and techniques - but the core ideas shed amazing light on my own RPGing. It helped me understand what had been so great about (say) my AD&D OA and thief campaigns, and what I had been going on in the best moments of our RM play. It also helped me work out why following advice in books like the Wilderness Survival Guide and the RM Campaign Law seemed to hurt my game, even though this was presented as the way to play.

Whereas you seem to find all commentary on narrativist play, discussion of techniques etc as being at odds with your own play. That makes me think - tentatively - that your play is predominantly high concept sim.

Predominantly, perhaps. I don't recall the exact definition.

And that the addressing of theme and moral conflicts that you refer to are closer to the way this comes up in DL, ie with pre-established answers, rather than via player decision-making about the meaning of what is at stake.

Perhaps I'm wrong? As I said, I'm just inferring from your posts.

You're at least partly wrong. I definitely want to the players to make their own choices, I just want those choices to be about things the characters can actually choose. So a player can certainly choose what moral choice to make even though they cannot choose where the wizard towers are!

My dislike of alignment and other such external moral frameworks is on the record. My favourite situations are morally complex ones where there are no obvious right or wrong, and the characters need to make meaningful moral choices. Though of course those can still exist alongside with more morally clear-cut situations in the same campaign just fine. Sometimes we want an episode that is a moral conundrum, sometimes we just want to stop "bad guys" doing bad stuff. It is fine. Campaigns can deal with different stuff at different moments. This is the simple and obvious truth you for some reason seem to have really hard time grasping.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This also relates to my post upthread in reply to @Crimson Longinus: if you read Edwards's essays, or a game like DitV or AW or BW, and find nothing of interest that you're not already finding in your (non-4e) D&D rulebooks, then I conjecture - tentatively at least - that you're not especially interested in "narrativist" play. I infer that you probably are playing, and are happy playing, in a high concept sim appproach.

Perhaps. Though my main issue with Edwards's writings is that they're opaque, pretentious and condescending, so it is hard to have patience to dig what nuggets of wisdom might be buried in them. But I admit there are some.

 

[FrogReaver]

Sure. Things don't involve in continua, though. For instance, wolverines, dogs and thylacines all have a common ancestor, but I doubt it was a mammalian quadruped carnivore.

Evolution occurs because of small population adaptions to the environment over time.

Can you really not imagine an animal halfway between a dog and Wolverine and wonder what kind of environment might have produced it? There’s nothing in the theory of evolution that suggests such an animal is impossible afterall.

I should add, I am assuming that "continuum" is being used in something like the ordinary sense of "a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, but the extremes are quite distinct" (thanks Google) or, as I would tend to think of it, "closely resembling, or being isomorphic to, the real number line".

Mostly this, I’d just note the continuum need not be 1 dimensional. if you want to say all the real world animals ever in actual existence do not form a continuum then I agree. Far too many gaps. But I’m not likening what I speak of to being all the real world animals currently to have ever existed. The explanatory likening would be more, what all theoretical animals could be produced by the evolution process in earthlike environments. Would you say this is a continuum?

This is the same ‘let’s limit discussion to games in actual existence’ instead of to ‘any theoretical game that could exist’. The first is not a continuum. The second almost certainly is.

If the ‘theory’ is not applicable to theoretical games that could exist but don’t currently then it’s not really a very good explanatory theory.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is not true. I mean, even before we worry about what constitutes a possible quadruped mammalian carnivore (biochemistry? physiology? ecology?), how would we place them on a continuum? What continuum do a thylacine, a dog and a wolverine all sit on?

All possible three dimensional coordinates form a continuum too. Though, I couldn’t begin to tell you how I’d begin to place them on one or on what continuum they exist on other than describing it as the continuum of all possible three dimensional coordinates.

*For theee dimensional coordinates I suppose it would be to take a linear combination of continuums for each dimension. So x,y,z. And since each dimension forms a continuum then the linear combination forms one too.

If this holds then one could do similar for our possible … carnivores set as well.

 

[clearstream]

Mostly this, I’d just note the continuum need not be 1 dimensional. if you want to say all the real world animals ever in actual existence do not form a continuum then I agree. Far too many gaps. But I’m not likening what I speak of to being all the real world animals currently to have ever existed. The explanatory likening would be more, what all theoretical animals could be produced by the evolution process in earthlike environments. Would you say this is a continuum?

This is the same ‘let’s limit discussion to games in actual existence’ instead of to ‘any theoretical game that could exist’. The first is not a continuum. The second almost certainly is.

If the ‘theory’ is not applicable to theoretical games that could exist but don’t currently then it’s not really a very good explanatory theory.

In a sense, we're all forced to be modalists when describing what actually exists right now in the domain. Because local physical reality does not (and cannot) contain every feasible instance along the continuum.

Example: In our local solar system, we have a few planets. It would be mistaken to imagine that these are the only possible planets, and that across the vastness of the visible Universe there are no similar-but-not-perfectly-similar along with obviously-different planets. And were it to turn out that the Universe were infinite, then every possible planet would perforce be instantiated, thus reifying the continuum... although this is a tremendous digression!

Another example: Compare Daggerheart with say Monster of the Week and D&D. I have noticed mechanics and principles seen in each of those games appearing in Daggerheart. Advantage and Disadvantage is an obvious one from D&D, but also the classes. But then WRT classes one sees progression tracks not so far from MotW. And so on. Or consider the Rulings Over Rules principle of Daggerheart... that many read into text in the D&D core books. Which is immediately followed by "Player Principles" that include "Play to Find Out What Happens".

I personally find value in using topologies to picture conceptual spaces. I first started considering it when I read a paper (that I cannot recall title or author of now) on engaging the visuo-spatial component of generalized intelligence to grasp and solve complex problems. Specifically by finding ways to render the problem space topologically. I find that heatmaps are similarly helpful. I've noticed that some folk are let's say "visual-thinkers", and this works for them. I wouldn't expect it to work for everyone.

 

[FrogReaver]

The existence of an actual spectrum - a range of properties that vary in some continuous respect. Obviously colour is the paradigm.

But we can talk about the degree to which (say) the claw of a hammer, a pair of pliers or a magnet might be helpful for some task (say, getting a stuck nail out of a bit of timber). That doesn't mean that there is a hammer-pliers-magnet spectrum!

Everything about the ‘helpfulness for specified task X’ meets your definition of spectrum above.

We can also imagine any number of hybrid tools that allow for clawing, pliering, and magneting. How well a theoretical tool claws, how well it pliers and how well it magnets would each be a continuum that we could form a linear combination of - which then would also be a continuum.

 

[pemerton]

I can live with small steps. Yes, intensity would admit of degree.

Hang on - so, having made up some random fact about me (I'm a "modalist" rather than a "hybridist") you now see me making "small steps".

It would probably be easier just to not make up facts.

 

[pemerton]

Can you really not imagine an animal halfway between a dog and Wolverine and wonder what kind of environment might have produced it? There’s nothing in the theory of evolution that suggests such an animal is impossible afterall.

As I said, I don't know what you and @clearstream mean by "possible". Do you mean ecologically possible? Biochemically possible? Something else?

Anyway, once you've constructed your dog-to-wolverine continuum, where do thylacines fit on it?

Mostly this, I’d just note the continuum need not be 1 dimensional. if you want to say all the real world animals ever in actual existence do not form a continuum then I agree. Far too many gaps. But I’m not likening what I speak of to being all the real world animals currently to have ever existed. The explanatory likening would be more, what all theoretical animals could be produced by the evolution process in earthlike environments. Would you say this is a continuum?

Is there an actual, ecologically and biochemically possible pathway from (say) humans to (say) octopuses, or to (say) bats? My understanding - coming from treatments of evolution and biology in philosophy of science (in which I am educated), not from the study of science itself (in which my education finished with high school) - is that the answer is no, because both in ecology and in biochemical development the actual trajectory taken is relevant.

So while it is presumably true that bats and humans have some common ancestor, and that octopuses and humans have some far more remote common ancestor, I don't think it is true that there is some imaginary intermediate stage between humans and bats that is ecologically or biochemically possible; nor between humans and octopuses.

This is the same ‘let’s limit discussion to games in actual existence’ instead of to ‘any theoretical game that could exist’. The first is not a continuum. The second almost certainly is.

If the ‘theory’ is not applicable to theoretical games that could exist but don’t currently then it’s not really a very good explanatory theory.

There is no reason to think that "any theoretical RPG that could exist" is on a continuum. As @AbdulAlhazred said, these games may be more like watches. Or they may be more like animals, with ecological and biochemical explanations for their natures.

In any event, what RPG are you imagining that Vincent Baker or Ron Edwards is confused about?

 

[clearstream]

Hang on - so, having made up some random fact about me (I'm a "modalist" rather than a "hybridist") you now see me making "small steps".

It would probably be easier just to not make up facts.

I'm not characterising you, only describing my perception of your arguments. Those have appeared to me strongly albeit not purely modalistic.