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

[zakael19]

I do find it a bit wild that people find 4e D&D narrativist. Like sure, if I squint really hard, I can see the points raised, but those seem to be more in the eye of the beholder rather than in the game text. For example to me the "player authored quests" is simply advice to award XP for unplanned stuff the PCs decide to do and nothing more. And what is weirdest to me that many of the people who seem to think 4e that way also seem to think that 5e is super bad fit for narrativism. Eh. They're different but ultimately pretty similar. The biggest difference is that 4e is way more combat focused and absolutely requires detailed battle maps to run properly. It is more gamist, than 5e, that's the actual difference.

Hi. Im running 4e, 5e, and playing 4e story now as we speak (in metaphorical terms, not literally concurrently to be clear).

4e absolutely has the intent for minor quests to be player ideated in the DM tools, and discusses cooperative world building + player delineated objectives from DMG2. It’s not quite on the level of a nearly 15 year later spin of PBTA, but the bones are there for a DM to grab with minimal effort.

5e flat out doesn’t support it in the same way. Balance is way off - you have to tell casters their cool toys don’t work, or they have minimal costing to bypassing challenges in a way a martial doesn’t. A very different CR & health system means balanced encounters are hard to drop in, or challenging ones players can impact via scene resolution. Skill Challenges simply don’t work as well, 5e skills suck and lack the breadth needed + the math isn’t there for consistency. The core settings have too much color there, backgrounds lack questions and themes to spark the sort of linked “what are you fighting for” quick character “this is who I am” tags, etc etc.

I can approximate it, and my players are enjoying it (SC feedback has been across the board extremely positive), but the 5e iteration is missing the mechanical bits to work quickly and effectively.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I do find it a bit wild that people find 4e D&D narrativist. Like sure, if I squint really hard, I can see the points raised, but those seem to be more in the eye of the beholder rather than in the game text. For example to me the "player authored quests" is simply advice to award XP for unplanned stuff the PCs decide to do and nothing more. And what is weirdest to me that many of the people who seem to think 4e that way also seem to think that 5e is super bad fit for narrativism. Eh. They're different but ultimately pretty similar. The biggest difference is that 4e is way more combat focused and absolutely requires detailed battle maps to run properly. It is more gamist, than 5e, that's the actual difference.

I think the biggest two differences between 4e and 5e are:

• How much of your character's abilities are inherent to you and how much are just equipment
• How what you do in combat varies from round to round, allowing you to emphasise what is important for your character.

I'll start with the second point first. In D&D 3.X or for most 5e builds (or if you are playing a Slayer in D&D 4e) if you are playing a fighter you basically walk towards the enemy and go "bop". 5e is not quite as terrible as 3.5 here because fighters all have Action Surge and Second Wind so they (like barbarians) get to declare fights as important enough to action surge/rage in and rogues can attack and hide in the same round. Meanwhile 4e characters are much more alive and get to do things like have reaction abilities, or to declare situations urgent enough to use daily powers. And most attacks are different rather than just walking forward and going "bop" or possibly "bop bop bop" to reduce hit points. (Even the Battlemaster generally goes "Bop plus rider"). And generally playing an untiring robot who always spams their best attack rather than paces themselves and mixes things up.

The other thing is that in 4e if you are a caster your abilities are you. In 3.X or 5e if you are a cleric your spells (i.e. a significant part of what you do) is equipment, and you pick it every day based on metagame considerations (which may be based on in character knowledge). Two clerics are fundamentally interchangeable in terms of ability; the things they bring to the party beyond sub-par melee attacks (and in 5e a subclass) are their spells, which can be switched over on a long rest. So optimal play involves spending a long time in your spell list and a lot less time in the moment. And a core issue that was common in 4e was people seeing their powers as abilities (as spells are) and picking the "best" without thinking of the character they belonged to; if you design the character then everything focuses on it. Yes, 5e has honourable exceptions here in the charisma casters and the ranger. But those are exceptions, not the rule.

And there are lots of places where 4e is just simply more character driven. Take, for example, Lay on Hands. In 5e it's a pool of hit points that give you a "magic pool". In 4e it lets you spend your own endurance (Healing Surges) to help someone else recover.

If you're approaching 4e with a narrative mindset then it just fits better than 5e does.

 

[pemerton]

I can imagine taking any rpg and making tiny change after tiny change until it transforms into another.

What is this pathway of tiny transformations from (say) RuneQuest to Apocalpyse World, that has a playable RPG at every point?

I mean, I've actually played RQ and RM, and I can't see the "continuum" pathway from them to Burning Wheel. Nor even from one of them to the other, even though they're both d%-using purist-for-system-oriented engines.

I appreciate that through a modalistic lense it can be hard to see that continuum. RQ and RM could seem as dissimilar as word puzzles and novels, rather than as similar as one word puzzle with another. Modalism is defined by denying any conceptual space surrounding and between instances.

This is nothing to do with "modalism".

@FrogReaver made the assertion I've quoted. I express scepticism about it, not on a prior grounds but because I've played both RPGs and have thought a lot about the differences between them.

Here are two main ones:

*In RM melee resolution, attack and defence are determined, round-by-round, from the same pool; whereas in RQ, attack and parry are separate skills which are rolled independently;

*In RM PC build, a player determines how to allocate their build points from level to level; whereas in RQ, skill development is randomly determined based on skill use.

The latter difference permits a RM player to send signals via their PC build. The former difference permits a RM player to adjust the stakes of melee via round-by-round decision-making.

Neither difference is one of degree.

The same sort of comparison could be done between RQ and Pendragon, too. Like, it would be relatively trivial to put RQ onto a d20 rather than d% chassis, with some loss of granularity and a few tweaks around the edges being required. But the presence of Trait and Passion rolls is a tremendous change, whether these are rated on d20 or d%.

You and @FrogReaver are making these claims about possibility, but neither of you has presented anything in the neighbourhood of a possibility proof. It's just assertion, as best I can tell.

A final argument that I will mention is that - when looked at in the context of ordinary, conventional RPGing with a typical GM-player divide - the most important thing to do to achieve narrativist play is to change the way the GM makes decisions from the sorts of approaches that are set out in "mainstream" RPG books (like, eg, most D&D DMGs). The relevant changes include having regard to player thematic cues, allowing players to set the goals for their PCs (and not asking them to pick from a GM-authored menu), and having regard to those thematic cues in establishing situations (= framing scenes) and establishing consequences. This in turn requires departing from "neutral GMing" as well as "follow the story board" GMing, and is apt to cause friction with some fairly common approaches to action resolution and to the establishing of consequences (eg rules around healing of injuries or recovery/replenishment of gear).

Yes, and as related to the OP, reading the Daggerheart game text I observe structures and statements that will have utility to modes of play that forcefully make that shift, and structures and statements that will have utility to modes of play that do not.

And?

A book can have advice for how to this thing, or how to do that thing. This does not, on its own, show that it is possible to do the two things at once, or that the two things lie on some continuum. Like, the instructions for my stereo system tell me how to pick up and play radio broadcasts, and how to connect it to a CD player. But I can't use it to listen to CDs and the radio at the same time.

It's unsurprising that a RPG rulebook hoping to sell to a variety of people will have advice that suggests the game can be played in multiple ways, to pursue different aesthetic goals. It's also unsurprising that it may even tend to blur the differences between those goals.

But I don't know what is supposed to follow from that.

 

[Autumnal]

At first when I read that 4e has significant assets for narrativist play, I went:


Then I went:


And now I go:

 

[pemerton]

To put my observations in another way

<snip>

I see TTRPG game design and player cultures as living, dynamic, always evolving. It wasn't settled for all time in 1974 and it sure as heck wasn't settled for all time in 2004.

These points seem rather trivially true. I'm not sure how they relate to @Arilyn's post, though, which was about whether or not Daggerheart will facilitate narrativist play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

For what it’s worth, I struggle to see how 4e really pushes hard toward narrativist play. I see it more baby-stepping in that direction. I view it as being more gamist and less simulationist than other versions which is what I think drove much of the strong opinions against it.

Maybe it’s actually the better example of a game lacking narrativist mechanics which can still play in a very narrativist fashion (didn’t for me, but many here report it did for them).

@pemerton mentioned something earlier that might help explain the better for narrativist feel. 4e did get rid of alot of mechanics that may have previously gotten in the way of narrativism. The biggest one I can think of is moving fairly hard away from the daily resource attrition based game. This means players aren’t strongly incentivized to make decisions to minimize resource attrition and can instead make decisions to maximize their thematics and narrative.

Right, but also moving a lot of discretion about how to apply the rules into the system, both in terms of combat but also by using SC. Giving all characters similar power of choice instead of giving it all to casters. Putting keywords on everything so you easily make consistent assumptions, etc.

 

[pemerton]

I do find it a bit wild that people find 4e D&D narrativist. Like sure, if I squint really hard, I can see the points raised, but those seem to be more in the eye of the beholder rather than in the game text. For example to me the "player authored quests" is simply advice to award XP for unplanned stuff the PCs decide to do and nothing more. And what is weirdest to me that many of the people who seem to think 4e that way also seem to think that 5e is super bad fit for narrativism. Eh. They're different but ultimately pretty similar. The biggest difference is that 4e is way more combat focused and absolutely requires detailed battle maps to run properly. It is more gamist, than 5e, that's the actual difference.

I don't know how you are using "gamist" here. Not in Edwards's sense - perhaps in some bespoke sense of your own?

I also don't know why you seem to think that a focus on combat as the key site of crisis and climax - the crux of the rising conflict across a moral line - is at odds with narrativism. There's plenty of other forms of fiction where combat plays that role - I don't see why RPGs would need to be differently, especially given their wargame heritage.

The salient differences from 5e are multiple. Some key ones are: 5e PCs are on a "daily" recovery budget, which means that the scene/encounter is not the basic unit of play; 5e PCs are on asymmetric resource and recovery frameworks, which push against the GM just framing and resolving without curation; 5e DCs for non-combat resolution are not set on a "pacing"/'rising action" basis, whereas 4e's DC-by-level chart achieves this.

On player-authored quests, they are not what you describe them as. The PHB (p 258) sets out the idea of a quest, and the contrast between a GM-authored and player-authored quest:

Sometimes a quest is spelled out for you at the start of an adventure. The town mayor might implore you to find the goblin raiders’ lair, or the priest of Pelor might relate the history of the Adamantine Scepter, before sending you on your quest. Other times, you figure out your quests while adventuring. Once you assemble clues you find, they might turn into new quests.

You can also, with your DM’s approval, create a quest for your character. Such a quest can tie into your character’s background. For instance, perhaps your mother is the person whose remains lie in the Fortress of the Iron Ring. Quests can also relate to individual goals, such as a ranger searching for a magic bow to wield. Individual quests give you a stake in a campaign’s unfolding story and give your DM ingredients to help develop that story.​

The first paragraph describes quests as a technique for GM-driven play. The second paragraph shows how quests can be used as a framework for player-driven play. The DMG then elaborates (pp 102-3) :

Quests are the fundamental story framework of an adventure - the reason the characters want to participate in it. They’re the reason an adventure exists, and they indicate what the characters need to do to solve the situation the adventure presents.

The simplest adventures revolve around a single quest, usually one that gives everyone in the party a motivation to pursue it. More complex adventures involve multiple quests, including quests related to individual characters’ goals or quests that conflict with each other, presenting characters with interesting choices about which goals to pursue. . . .

The goal of a quest is what the characters have to accomplish to succeed on the quest. Goals should be as clear as you can make them. Goals can change as the characters uncover information, but such changes should also be clear. . . .

Quests should focus on the story reasons for adventuring, not on the underlying basic actions of the game - killing monsters and acquiring treasure. “Defeat ten encounters of your level” isn’t a quest. It’s a recipe for advancing a level. Completing it is its own reward. “Make Harrows Pass safe for travelers” is a quest, even if the easiest way to accomplish it happens to be defeating ten encounters of the characters’ level. This quest is a story-based goal, and one that has at least the possibility of solution by other means.

Conflicting Quests
You can present quests that conflict with each other, or with the characters’ alignments or goals. The players have the freedom to make choices about which quests to accept, and these can be great opportunities for roleplaying and character development.

Player-Designed Quests
You should allow and even encourage players to come up with their own quests that are tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure. Evaluate the proposed quest and assign it a level. Remember to say yes as often as possible!​

Most of what I've quoted from the DMG talks about how quests establish PC goals that provide a reason for adventuring. It also explains how conflicting quests - that is to say, goals that are to some extent at odds - provide opportunities for conflict (rising conflict across a moral line!). And then the last paragraph I've quoted encourages the GM to put this onto the players - thus establishing player-authored rising conflict across a moral line.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It is so weird that this is people's experience of 4e. Mine was that it is too prep heavy, and that's one reason I stopped running it.
I find 5e much easier to prep.

5e seems thoroughly built on the notion that you will completely document an entire location beforehand with a whole map and key and everything needed to inform the players that this or that or another thing is so, or not so, etc.

Now, you could, and I guess Mike envisaged this, play 4e in a similar way. However, I just sat down at a table with a monster book and a square ruled Chessex mat, some figures and tokens, and a grease pencil. Never needed anything else, besides dice and a web browser. Often I'd generate sheets with stat blocks of the 8 or 12 most likely things that were probably going to come up, and a list of terrain powers and terrain features, but that was usually after things got moving in a certain direction.

And, yes, you could kind of do it with 5e, but there's some weirdnesses around resource depletion cycles and it lacks some of the nice features that 4e had. Frankly 4e monsters are WAY easier to run AND way more interesting. I'd DEFINITELY have to prep for any serious 5e monster threat, since that means spells and looking up spells. 5e is OK, but I just don't think it is made to do stuff on the fly like 4e is.

 

[pemerton]

To be fair, Edwards in a recent interview said thatgns is moronic and that it is a short-lived transition in the development of ideas it just happened to be the time when light was being shown on that dialogue right and that's the form in which it escaped at least the term in which it escaped off to the wild

You have seen or linked the video of the interview yourself, either earlier here or in another thread.

I'm relistening to this - where does he say what you say?

At around 14 minutes, 50 seconds or thereabouts he says, of the "big model", that "I like the picture myself." And he then goes on to explain that it is a model of actual instances or episode of play, not a model of the total possible space of RPGing as a human activity. And also that it addresses and helps us see how the medium of RPGing can be applied to various creative goals, by adopting appropriate ways ("techniques") of changing the shared imagined space.

He gives his example of playing narrativist 3E D&D. And around 45 minutes has some very hostile things to say about "writers' room" (my phrase, not his) or "rotating authority" RPGing: he characterises it as democratised railroading.

I also found these interesting remarks from Edwards in the comments:

[Simulationism] was difficult to talk about, especially once "story game" was established as a term and everyone started calling them "narrative games" and my entire point about Story Now was sucked into the memory vacuum. . . .

I have also concluded that anyone who proclaims they ARE a "this" or ARE a "that" in terms of any of my terms has clearly walked off a cliff. For one thing, we are talking about behavior, not fixed essential soul-spirits; for another, I think we as people are particularly bad at identifying anything we personally happen to be.​

The only change is the idea that simulationism is not a distinct creative agenda. He still thinks that people will use the medium of RPGing either for folk story creation ("story now") or for competition ("step on up").

 

[clearstream]

I'm relistening to this - where does he say what you say?

At around 14 minutes, 50 seconds or thereabouts he says, of the "big model", that "I like the picture myself." And he then goes on to explain that it is a model of actual instances or episode of play, not a model of the total possible space of RPGing as a human activity. And also that it addresses and helps us see how the medium of RPGing can be applied to various creative goals, by adopting appropriate ways ("techniques") of changing the shared imagined space.

He gives his example of playing narrativist 3E D&D. And around 45 minutes has some very hostile things to say about "writers' room" (my phrase, not his) or "rotating authority" RPGing: he characterises it as democratised railroading.

I also found these interesting remarks from Edwards in the comments:

[Simulationism] was difficult to talk about, especially once "story game" was established as a term and everyone started calling them "narrative games" and my entire point about Story Now was sucked into the memory vacuum. . . .​

​

I have also concluded that anyone who proclaims they ARE a "this" or ARE a "that" in terms of any of my terms has clearly walked off a cliff. For one thing, we are talking about behavior, not fixed essential soul-spirits; for another, I think we as people are particularly bad at identifying anything we personally happen to be.​

The only change is the idea that simulationism is not a distinct creative agenda. He still thinks that people will use the medium of RPGing either for folk story creation ("story now") or for competition ("step on up").

About 1 minute in.

I didn't notice any meaningful change in his thinking towards "simulationism": he just confirmed what he's said before.