"Narrative" does not mean what Ron Edwards thought it meant. I am sorry if he convinced you that it does. I am doubly sorry that he did so in such a fashion as to get people raging at the very thought that playing an RPG creates a narrative: the relating of a series of imaginary events that unfolds in the mind.

And by the way? Following along the lives of an imaginary character and playing out just the interesting stuff? Well why do you think books, movies, and any other narrative form tend to do the same thing?

Skipping the boring stuff is a narrative principle, not one of simulation. Havent you ever played The Sims?

Quote from: Manzanaro;881701An awareness of things like pacing, drama, and suspense, decoupled from an intent to arrive at some predetermined final outcome

This is, I think, the really controversial point. Because all the rest of your concerns are easily addressed with intra-diagetic rules, that is rules that only leverage "events that happen in the fictional world" and thus do not require jumping out of one's character to "director stance". Thus they create no friction or opposition between the experience you are looking for and what is advocated by Krueger, estar, nDervish or others: RPG as the in-world, in-character experience.

The problem is that pacing, drama and suspense are not qualities of the world that the fiction describes. They are qualities of the fiction itself. Thus they cannot stem from rules that only leverage intra-diagetic interactions. In order to create something that only exists in "the narrative", you need techniques that leverage the narrative itself, not the world described by the narrative.

Because pacing, drama and suspense are not something that the character experiences: they are something that you, as the reader of the novel or watcher of the movies experience. Pacing is not the result of what happens in the fictional world, it is the effect of the director's cut of the scenes. No character experiences "drama", at most he experiences "fear" or "suffering". Drama is something that you, the reader/co-author of the story, feel. Not your character.

All the rest, authenticity and sense of wonder, is definitely easy to obtain by simply leveraging the internal consistency of the game world. If the world feels living and plausible, the sense of wonder and the willingness to avoid useless combat will come on their own.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;881708This is, I think, the really controversial point. Because all the rest of your concerns are easily addressed with intra-diagetic rules, that is rules that only leverage "events that happen in the fictional world" and thus do not require jumping out of one's character to "director stance". Thus they create no friction or opposition between the experience you are looking for and what is advocated by Krueger, estar, nDervish or others: RPG as the in-world, in-character experience.

The problem is that pacing, drama and suspense are not qualities of the world that the fiction describes. They are qualities of the fiction itself. Thus they cannot stem from rules that only leverage intra-diagetic interactions. In order to create something that only exists in "the narrative", you need techniques that leverage the narrative itself, not the world described by the narrative.

Because pacing, drama and suspense are not something that the character experiences: they are something that you, as the reader of the novel or watcher of the movies experience. Pacing is not the result of what happens in the fictional world, it is the effect of the director's cut of the scenes. No character experiences "drama", at most he experiences "fear" or "suffering". Drama is something that you, the reader/co-author of the story, feel. Not your character.

All the rest, authenticity and sense of wonder, is definitely easy to obtain by simply leveraging the internal consistency of the game world. If the world feels living and plausible, the sense of wonder and the willingness to avoid useless combat will come on their own.

This is why I see these things as primarily being in the GMs territory. The GM's role is inherently meta as it is.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881707"Narrative" does not mean what Ron Edwards thought it meant. I am sorry if he convinced you that it does. I am doubly sorry that he did so in such a fashion as to get people raging at the very thought that playing an RPG creates a narrative: a series of imaginary events that unfolds in the mind.

The point you're not seeming to see us making is that imaginary events that unfold in the mind can be experienced in different ways.

You see these imaginary events that unfold in the mind playing an RPG as really no different than the imaginary events that unfold in the mind while watching a movie, reading a book, etc, which is why, for 10 pages now, that's the only language you've used to describe it.

Got news for you.  For me, Estar, nDervish, and a whole lot of people on this site, they are not the same thing.  Not at all.  You placed a laundry list of things you want out of a game, most of them don't need any thought at all towards scene framing, narrative pacing, all the other things that matter when I'm creating some form of literary art.  All you need is a decent GM.  As I said a while ago...

1. Interesting setting - The characters have lots to do, lots to choose from.
2. Interesting NPCs - Whatever they decide to do, there are people who they can interact with that seem actual personalities, not stereotypes or cliches.
3. Interesting Enemies - Gangsters, cultists, corporations, nobles, people who have their own agendas, own resources and probably will conflict with the PCs at some point.
4. Pull no punches - They play their PCs, you play the world. Play it straight and play it hard.

Done.

CRK, do you feel that you and I MUST share the same views and perspective in this matter? This discussion is not intended as a personal attack on you, nor am I challenging your assertations at every turn.

Tldr: It is okay for us to disagree.

What more do you want from me?

Quote from: Manzanaro;881709This is why I see these things as primarily being in the GMs territory. The GM's role is inherently meta as it is.

And here is the point: why the GM and not the rules? If knowing that the GM will skip the uninteresting parts like finding where to pee does not break your suspension of disbelief, why do "meta" principles that codify this in the rules disturb you?

In other words, why are you conflating "I want rules that leverage only what happens in-world" with "rulings, not rules"? They are not consequential principles.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;881713And here is the point: why the GM and not the rules? If knowing that the GM will skip the uninteresting parts like finding where to pee does not break your suspension of disbelief, why do "meta" principles that codify this in the rules disturb you?

In other words, why are you conflating "I want rules that leverage only what happens in-world" with "rulings, not rules"? They are not consequential principles.

Because rules=formula=predictability. You can't create a good narrative by formula alone.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881703How do you advance the game from there?

If you meant you singular, I don't advance the game at all.  

If the players somehow found out about Blackskull Castle in the Ghostmourn Wood, then they're going to go about finding maps, guides, supplies, rumors, which is going to entail them meeting with a lot of people and/or making various skill rolls, at which point I enter the picture to play the NPCs and determine what the skill rolls accomplish.

Ask yourself, "If I was a person living in this world, and I wanted to travel to Blackskull Castle in the Ghostmourn Wood, what tasks would I need to accomplish to get there?"  Bathroom visits aside, much the same thing will occur.

Along the way, depending on the specifics, there may be road wardens, coaching inns, farmers, gypsies, gamblers, crazy men, brigands, ferries, tolls, etc... or not, depending.  

If the players pass by everyone they encounter along the way it could take a short amount of game time.  Knowing my players, it's going to take a couple sessions, because along the way, the setting has interesting casts of characters who are going to be fun to interact with, so they will.

Entering the wood, the characters will be more cautious and careful, like you or I would in their situation.  The Ghostmourn Wood is probably dangerous, maybe there is A ghost, maybe the players will actively seek it out.  Maybe they spent time researching all the legends of the place to see if maybe they can put the ghost to rest.  Or not.

Finally, if the sources they found were correct, they get to the Castle as planned, if not it may be a while before they find it, or they may encounter some inhabitants outside the Castle and track them to the place.  What's there, who knows, I think we should hopefully have the point by now.

No scenes were framed, no paces were set, no tension was consciously built, no beats were struck.  The players do all that for themselves, organically and intrinsically, by simply roleplaying their characters without any relation at all to how they would view a movie or read a book.

1. Interesting setting - The characters have lots to do, lots to choose from.
2. Interesting NPCs - Whatever they decide to do, there are people who they can interact with that seem actual personalities, not stereotypes or cliches.
3. Interesting Enemies - Gangsters, cultists, corporations, nobles, people who have their own agendas, own resources and probably will conflict with the PCs at some point.
4. Pull no punches - They play their PCs, you play the world. Play it straight and play it hard.

Done.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881714Because rules=formula=predictability. You can't create a good narrative by formula alone.

I do not give this for granted. Not at all. Van Vogt used specific techniques to create his narrative - actually counting words between twists and so on. Stephen King uses recognizable "techniques" in his fiction. The pacing and style of certain anime can be nailed down in the rules without resorting to GM fiat to enforce it. I have done this. Maggi and Nepitello (just to quote someone who is not a Forge taleban) have shown that they can isolate an immaterial quality like the "atmosphere" in Tolkien's fiction and write rules that lead the group to reproduce it.

Like anything in an RPG such rules cannot override a sucky GM (the rules cannot fix stupid, as Gronan uses to say), but there is a huge difference between "the game is based on the presence of this mythic figure, the Good GM" and "the rules clearly explain what are the GM's responsibilities on this subject".

Quote from: Manzanaro;881712CRK, do you feel that you and I MUST share the same views and perspective in this matter? This discussion is not intended as a personal attack on you, nor am I challenging your assertations at every turn.

Tldr: It is okay for us to disagree.

What more do you want from me?

Well, if you're not willing to entertain the notion that what multiple people are telling you they experience while roleplaying is in fact true, even if you don't experience it, well then there's not much to say.

Either you admit we experience things differently or you do not.
So far, everything you've said points to the bog-standard storygamer response of "Oh I know you THINK that's what you're experiencing, but it's not really.  You're really experiencing what I do, you just don't know it."

If that's what you think, then you're not worth anyone's time here.

If you think "Hmm, ok, there's obviously a major difference of opinion here, maybe they're not all sharing the same delusion and there's actually something to what they're saying and they DON'T think of roleplaying the same way." then maybe we can get to the core of the topic and you might find all these non-answers are actually good ones.

Quote from: CRKrueger;881715If you meant you singular, I don't advance the game at all.  

If the players somehow found out about Blackskull Castle in the Ghostmourn Wood, then they're going to go about finding maps, guides, supplies, rumors, which is going to entail them meeting with a lot of people and/or making various skill rolls, at which point I enter the picture to play the NPCs and determine what the skill rolls accomplish.

Ask yourself, "If I was a person living in this world, and I wanted to travel to Blackskull Castle in the Ghostmourn Wood, what tasks would I need to accomplish to get there?"  Bathroom visits aside, much the same thing will occur.

Along the way, depending on the specifics, there may be road wardens, coaching inns, farmers, gypsies, gamblers, crazy men, brigands, ferries, tolls, etc... or not, depending.  

If the players pass by everyone they encounter along the way it could take a short amount of game time.  Knowing my players, it's going to take a couple sessions, because along the way, the setting has interesting casts of characters who are going to be fun to interact with, so they will.

Entering the wood, the characters will be more cautious and careful, like you or I would in their situation.  The Ghostmourn Wood is probably dangerous, maybe there is A ghost, maybe the players will actively seek it out.  Maybe they spent time researching all the legends of the place to see if maybe they can put the ghost to rest.  Or not.

Finally, if the sources they found were correct, they get to the Castle as planned, if not it may be a while before they find it, or they may encounter some inhabitants outside the Castle and track them to the place.  What's there, who knows, I think we should hopefully have the point by now.

No scenes were framed, no paces were set, no tension was consciously built, no beats were struck.  The players do all that for themselves, organically and intrinsically, by simply roleplaying their characters without any relation at all to how they would view a movie or read a book.

1. Interesting setting - The characters have lots to do, lots to choose from.
2. Interesting NPCs - Whatever they decide to do, there are people who they can interact with that seem actual personalities, not stereotypes or cliches.
3. Interesting Enemies - Gangsters, cultists, corporations, nobles, people who have their own agendas, own resources and probably will conflict with the PCs at some point.
4. Pull no punches - They play their PCs, you play the world. Play it straight and play it hard.

Done.

So once they set off, you might narrate something like "later that morning you arrive at the last farmstead before the narrow track plunges into the wood," or do you not skip time at all? Do you narrate every single step of the trip? Or skip to what you feel has the potential to be interesting?

Quote from: CRKrueger;881717Well, if you're not willing to entertain the notion that what multiple people are telling you they experience while roleplaying is in fact true, even if you don't experience it, well then there's not much to say.

Either you admit we experience things differently or you do not.
So far, everything you've said points to the bog-standard storygamer response of "Oh I know you THINK that's what you're experiencing, but it's not really.  You're really experiencing what I do, you just don't know it."

If that's what you think, then you're not worth anyone's time here.

If you think "Hmm, ok, there's obviously a major difference of opinion here, maybe they're not all sharing the same delusion and there's actually something to what they're saying and they DON'T think of roleplaying the same way." then maybe we can get to the core of the topic and you might find all these non-answers are actually good ones.

I admit that you play roleplaying games with no conscious consideration of the quality of the emerging narrative. But that approach is not what this thread is aimed to discuss.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;881708This is, I think, the really controversial point. Because all the rest of your concerns are easily addressed with intra-diagetic rules, that is rules that only leverage "events that happen in the fictional world" and thus do not require jumping out of one's character to "director stance". Thus they create no friction or opposition between the experience you are looking for and what is advocated by Krueger, estar, nDervish or others: RPG as the in-world, in-character experience.

The problem is that pacing, drama and suspense are not qualities of the world that the fiction describes. They are qualities of the fiction itself. Thus they cannot stem from rules that only leverage intra-diagetic interactions. In order to create something that only exists in "the narrative", you need techniques that leverage the narrative itself, not the world described by the narrative.

Because pacing, drama and suspense are not something that the character experiences: they are something that you, as the reader of the novel or watcher of the movies experience. Pacing is not the result of what happens in the fictional world, it is the effect of the director's cut of the scenes. No character experiences "drama", at most he experiences "fear" or "suffering". Drama is something that you, the reader/co-author of the story, feel. Not your character.

All the rest, authenticity and sense of wonder, is definitely easy to obtain by simply leveraging the internal consistency of the game world. If the world feels living and plausible, the sense of wonder and the willingness to avoid useless combat will come on their own.

Bravo.  I've been up most of the damn night with a sinus infection, and I'm more than a little bit snarky, thanks for knocking that one out of the park.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;881716I do not give this for granted. Not at all. Van Vogt used specific techniques to create his narrative - actually counting words between twists and so on. Stephen King uses recognizable "techniques" in his fiction. The pacing and style of certain anime can be nailed down in the rules without resorting to GM fiat to enforce it. I have done this. Maggi and Nepitello (just to quote someone who is not a Forge taleban) have shown that they can isolate an immaterial quality like the "atmosphere" in Tolkien's fiction and write rules that lead the group to reproduce it.

Like anything in an RPG such rules cannot override a sucky GM (the rules cannot fix stupid, as Gronan uses to say), but there is a huge difference between "the game is based on the presence of this mythic figure, the Good GM" and "the rules clearly explain what are the GM's responsibilities on this subject".

But techniques does not equal rules. I am specifally interested in narrative techniques and how they apply to RPGs as opposed to rules which directly constrain possibilities and dictate outcomes in a formulaic fashion. I am not worried about some hypothetical GM and his or her shortcomings.

That is like talking painting technique and worrying that not all painters have the level of skill neccesary to paint well so all painting should be done in color by numbers books.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881461Bit of a flip on another ongoing topic.

So the premise is basically: let's imagine we have a system of rules that cover a bunch of the things that we might find in a novel of the fantasy genre. So there are rules for how to determine the winner of a fight, how magic works, what various monsters can do, and etc. The thing is that none of these rules are geared towards narrative concerns; they don't factor in who the 'protagonist' is in a combat, or how to use the rules to bring drama and tension to the game, or how to get the players of the game's characters to act in a manner consistent with what we might expect from a fantasy novel.

Now, obviously, one may have absolutely no interest in these sort of narrative concerns, and this question would not even be worth considering. You might approach the rules as a framework for exercises in logistics or purely as a game to be won. You might find that, regardless of whether a game's rules are oriented around fantasy, superheroes, vampires, cyberpunk, or anything else, all of this really just boils down to trappings and that "kill them all and take their stuff" tends to be a lot more interesting than trying to emulate genre conventions or to employ narrative principles as rules of gameplay.

But I think that a complete disregard for the narrative that emerges from playing an RPG is rare. I think that, generally speaking, most players would prefer that their game sessions end up telling a good interesting story, rather than, say, just producing a dull series of events completely lacking in drama or any of the other qualities that draw people to fiction.

Now, to show my own cards here? I do not tend to like games where narrative principles are too heavily encoded in the rules of the game. I don't want to know for a fact that the main characters are not actually in danger because they are narratively protected by the rules of the game. I don't want a final outcome that is never in doubt. I don't want to be railroaded along some predetermined plot trajectory. I don't want the villain to always escape because that is how it works in the source material.

But I DO want the events of the game to be compelling, dramatic, suspenseful, involving and all the other things that are hallmarks of a good story. And strict rules of simulation do not 'care' about any of these characteristics. Under rules of simulation, Batman and Tarzan die pretty early on and the Fellowship of the Ring is lost under a tide of orcs.

So what I thought might be interesting to discuss is tools and techniques for doing this. How do you, whether as GM or player, promote a good compelling narrative under rules of simulation?

And here I thought nobody would be interested in such a topic:p!

As a Referee, I have three rules for doing that:).

• Create interesting NPCs and require the players to do the same.
  
• Put them in interesting situations with either no easy or no obvious answers, or both.
• Play out what the characters would do and adjudicate impassively.

Players say it works;). What they don't realise is, I'm making them do most if not all of the work, in a Tai Chi Refereeing way, or something:D. The trick here is to deconstruct all the "complicated" outcomes of the story into small steps, and then resolve them step by step.

There are other ways of doing the same, I guess, but this one works best for me in a simulation-style game;).