In a thread about I can't remember what exactly (such is life on forums) somebody mentioned 'narrative rights', in the sense of who has them, and who should have them, at various points in the game, GM or player. Don't worry, I'm not going to get all Ron Edwards on your asses (you'll be relieved to hear), but I thought this was a concept worth exploring.

I have an idea for a game (no, not that one, a different one) where the players undergo some kind of Dead Zone style shock and all regress to childhood, while retaining their adult bodies. I want to name the skills after school subjects, e.g. Geography for streetsmarts, Physics for power manipulation, and Chemistry for alchemy and potions etc.

I'm not sure how I'm going to stat the PCs, but one way or another they will each have a certain level of ability in various curricular subjects. But in order to fudge bad rolls when the plot particularly needs the players to succeed, or if I'm just feeling generous, I'm considering giving players an additional skill that they will have a limited use of (say x3 per game), called memory. The way I intend to apply it- and here's where the concept of 'narrative rights/duties' comes in- is that in order for them to be able to use this specialisation, they would have to narrate a short scene outlining why they remember this particular topic.

So, let's say the party are lost in the woods and it's important for the plot that they find their way out. One of the players might roll Geography plus memory, but before doing so would relate that they remember going on a field trip at school, during which the teacher gave the class a mini-lesson in map-reading. They would then elaborate that this lesson stuck in their mind because while explaining some point the teacher fell into some stinging nettles and was writhing about while all the pupils laughed at him.

Secondly, I have an idea for another, more traditional game, with various roles such as wizard, thief, knight etc., and for players to change or take on certain roles during the game they would have to explain, IC, why they wanted to take on that particular role. Frx, one player might want to become an assassin so I would say Ok, I'll have a look at your stats in the relevant skills (stealth, poisons, martial arts etc.) and decide how many turns it'll take you to attain the requisite level of training, but first, why do want to become an assassin? The player might respond by saying that they remember their parents being murdered by Gliphid raiders or whatever, and they feel that on this mission they will have a chance to get their revenge. Maybe the player suspects that someone we're going to meet was a party to the murder, or at any rate was somehow involved.

So what I'm throwing out here is, How do folks feel about the concept, not of 'narrative rights', but of 'narrative duties'? In other words, the players are 'paying' for progression with narrative. Of course, the other players could build on this narration if they so choose, e.g. one of them might decide that she was the person who'd murdered player X's parents, or in the other example they might remember being in the same lesson as player X, etc.

I'm sure the concept isn't new, in fact I'd be interested to hear how it's dealt with in other games. I await folks' thoughts...