In the monster that is the conflict resolution thread, "Narrative Control" was brought up. What is "Narrative Control", exactly?

I'm going to come up with a few phrases an example game might say. Assume that this group aren't trying to disrupt the game, and nobody is being a jackass, and everybody is playing in character and to the rules of the game. Which players are exerting "Narrative Control"? These are examples, and quite brief, so please try to read them charitably.

Scene 1:
GM: "The village elder has called you to a meeting in his family barn."

Player 1: "I stand at the back of the barn, looking cautious": This is just stating his character's simple actions, pretty much. I'm guessing this isn't Narrative Control, and a GM wouldn't block this. If you would, what you say?

Player 2: "I sit on a bail of hay, listening carefully": Again, with the character's actions, but this time the player has created a small & reasonable part of the world (a bail of hay). Is this Narrative Control? If you wanted to block this, what would you say?

Player 3: "I stride in, shake hands in a businesslike manner with the elder and throw a charming smile at his lovely wife": This player has described the actions of an NPC (the elder shakes his hand) and added an NPC to the scene (the wife). Are either of those things Narrative Control? If you wanted to block this, what would you say?

Scene 2:
Let's go to a conflict situation. The PCs want to investigate an old mine, and the elder doesn't want them to, and won't tell them where the entrance is. Let's also say that the plot has PCs discovering something in the town's church before heading off to the mines.

GM: "The village elder tells you should stay in town, and not go down into those haunted mines. He's not giving you the exact location."

Player 1: "We want to get that information out of him. I'm going to use Persuade"

If you let the player try, fairly (i.e. no arbitrary -20 penalties or anything like that to force a failure, just what the rules allow), is that giving him Narrative Control? Let's say you allow it:

(rolls dice, player succeeds, GM fails)

So the players get the information, but you still want the players to go to the church first. Who has Narrative Control if you say something like this:

GM: "OK, you manage to get the information out of him, but in doing so, he puts the fear of God into you. He tells you must get a blessing from the local priest before heading down there."

On the other hand, if you just said something like:

GM: "OK, you get the information out of him, but he looks damn scared, and says something like 'God forgive me' after he spills the location."

Is that the same, or different?

Scene 3:
OK, let's fast-forward to a fight between a PC and a cave-dweller. I'll do this a different way around. The player will state an action, but his dice will come up bad, so he fails. What kind of thing would be said in response, and do any of these responses affect the amount of Narrative Control the player has in any way?

GM: "You and the cave-dweller are fighting, just inches away from a the edge of a deep, open, mineshaft"

Player: "I shove the cave-dweller down the mineshaft and to his death below!"

GM: "OK, roll Melee."

(rolls dice, fails)

GM response A: "No you don't. Instead, you scream and run away in fear from his monstrous appearance!"

GM response B: "No you don't. Instead, you restrain yourself, clenching your fists and standing menacing over him."

GM response C: "No you don't. You get your hands on him, but he twists away, and you don't get to give him a good shove."

GM response D: "No you don't. You heave him over, but he catches onto a wooden prop about 10' down. He's dangling there."

GM response E: "Well you shove him over, and he lands -- crunch -- in a mangled heap, but he's still moving, so not dead yet."

There is a lot of stuff here, but I'm still cloudy on what Narrative Control is. Does any of this make sense?

Quote from: warrenScene 1:
GM: "The village elder has called you to a meeting in his family barn."

Player 1: "I stand at the back of the barn, looking cautious": This is just stating his character's simple actions, pretty much. I'm guessing this isn't Narrative Control, and a GM wouldn't block this. If you would, what you say?

I wouldn't block this, players control their characters.

Quote from: warrenPlayer 2: "I sit on a bail of hay, listening carefully": Again, with the character's actions, but this time the player has created a small & reasonable part of the world (a bail of hay). Is this Narrative Control? If you wanted to block this, what would you say?

This is acceptable to me, I would only block it if as a plot point there wasn't actually any hay and I was planning to make that clear in due course, in which case I would say something like "you try to, but strangely the barn doesn't have any hay in it".  That would only come up if in fact this was a fake farm or something like that and this was one of the clues, otherwise this is just the player describing the character's actions from where I sit.

Quote from: warrenPlayer 3: "I stride in, shake hands in a businesslike manner with the elder and throw a charming smile at his lovely wife": This player has described the actions of an NPC (the elder shakes his hand) and added an NPC to the scene (the wife). Are either of those things Narrative Control? If you wanted to block this, what would you say?

This goes too far for me.  As GM, I run the world pretty much and I give thought to stuff like what kind of guy the elder is.  Suddenly having a lovely wife introduced changes the whole scene and quite possibly interferes with how I had planned to portray the elder.  I don't tell the PCs how to play their characters, they don't tell me how to play the NPCs.  

This has actually happened to me, an elderly retainer came into a room and one of the players (a new guy) suddenly started directly authoring dialogue for the retainer.  It was fucked up, our group didn't run that way and the retainer was there for a reason which made no sense anymore given the dialogue he gave him.  This isn't as a rule ok for me and if someone introduced it from nowhere I would be concerned, that said if we were playing a game in which narrative control switched around then of course we would be expecting this.

Quote from: warrenGM: "The village elder tells you should stay in town, and not go down into those haunted mines. He's not giving you the exact location."

Player 1: "We want to get that information out of him. I'm going to use Persuade"

If you let the player try, fairly (i.e. no arbitrary -20 penalties or anything like that to force a failure, just what the rules allow), is that giving him Narrative Control?

No, it's letting him control his character.

Quote from: warrenSo the players get the information, but you still want the players to go to the church first. Who has Narrative Control if you say something like this:

GM: "OK, you manage to get the information out of him, but in doing so, he puts the fear of God into you. He tells you must get a blessing from the local priest before heading down there."

Firstly, I could care less where the party go first.  That's for them, deciding they should go to the church first smacks of railroading to me and is not how I prefer to GM.

Had I some reason for it on this occasion though, I would not do as the quote here.  Here I have usurped control of the PC from the player, I have told them how they feel, if I want to run a character I should roll up one of my own.  What's the point of the player turning up if I tell them how their character feels?  For me this would be unacceptable and if it happened to me as a player I would not be so happy.

Quote from: warrenGM: "OK, you get the information out of him, but he looks damn scared, and says something like 'God forgive me' after he spills the location."

Different, I'm saying what the NPC does which is within my sphere of responsibility.  I'm not saying how the PC reacts, which is the player's responsibility.

Quote from: warrenGM response A: "No you don't. Instead, you scream and run away in fear from his monstrous appearance!"

Again, taking control of how the PC feels, this is a really bad idea and I have effectively taken away the player's interface with the game and made a change to their character which may ruin the character concept.  Not good.  I've had this happen to me, where the GM dictated what my character did as he thought it was appropriate, the character did stuff outside my conception of them and I lost interest in playing them as a result - the character no longer made sense to me.

Quote from: warrenGM response B: "No you don't. Instead, you restrain yourself, clenching your fists and standing menacing over him."

It's not as bad as A, as at least I'm not suddenly making the character a panicked coward, but I'm still telling the player what his PC does and that is not appropriate and I wouldn't do it.

Quote from: warrenGM response C: "No you don't. You get your hands on him, but he twists away, and you don't get to give him a good shove."

That's fine, the player said what he did and I then narrate the outcome, trad GMing 101.  My answer to D and E is the same, I don't really see a difference there.

I'm not sure what of this is narrative control, however what I enjoy best as a player or GM is that the player controls their character and interfaces with the game world via the character.  The GM controls NPCs and the world.

Note, that says nothing about whether play is conflict driven or anything like that or how I seek to structure play.  But in essence, narrating the PC's thoughts, feelings and acts is within the world of the player, narrating outcomes, NPCs and the world is within the realm of the GM.

I'm aware alternatives exist and that's fine, I play this way as I personally find it most rewarding.

I shall let Balbinus write all my responses for me henceforth, as he does a better job than I would...

-clash

Quote from: warrenIn the monster that is the conflict resolution thread, "Narrative Control" was brought up. What is "Narrative Control", exactly?

One thing to bear in mind is that the phrase was coined by someone in the thread (Feanor?) to mean, basically, "ability to narrate whatever happens". Because of the way it wound up being used, I take "whatever happens" literally. This saves the term from vague subjectivity over whether the thing being narrated is "important" or whether it has local or global significance in the game.

However because the term is used to highlight whatever's special about "conflict resolution", it also seems to refer only to areas outside the normal ("traditional") domain of control. I.e., when I'm narrating when I say my character blinks his eyes, that's the sort of thing that I'd normally be able to do anyway, so I don't think it was the intent of the coinage to include that.

I don't think it was intended to create a piece of jargon for universal application. Therefore it's only fair to answer these questions in terms of the implied special-use definition.

Below, when you mention the GM "blocking" certain things, I assume you mean that your criterion for identifying narrative control is whether a "traditional" GM would block? I don't buy that, though. You're mixing up the idea of whether a group is comfortable with a given distribution of "narrative control" and the existence of "narrative control" to begin with.

QuoteScene 1:
GM: "The village elder has called you to a meeting in his family barn."

Player 1: "I stand at the back of the barn, looking cautious": This is just stating his character's simple actions, pretty much. I'm guessing this isn't Narrative Control, and a GM wouldn't block this. If you would, what you say?

The player isn't exercising NC.

QuotePlayer 2: "I sit on a bail of hay, listening carefully": Again, with the character's actions, but this time the player has created a small & reasonable part of the world (a bail of hay). Is this Narrative Control? If you wanted to block this, what would you say?

The player is exercising a tiny amount of NC by bringing the bale into it. As a GM I'd only feel inclined to block that if I was certain there weren't any bales of hay, and I'd just say that there weren't any bales of hay to sit on.

QuotePlayer 3: "I stride in, shake hands in a businesslike manner with the elder and throw a charming smile at his lovely wife": This player has described the actions of an NPC (the elder shakes his hand) and added an NPC to the scene (the wife). Are either of those things Narrative Control? If you wanted to block this, what would you say?

Of course, the first is a slight bit of NC. A GM might well say "You extend your hand to shake his, but he keeps his arms folded." The wife is a significant bit of NC; the GM might say, "His wife isn't there."

QuoteScene 2:
Let's go to a conflict situation. The PCs want to investigate an old mine, and the elder doesn't want them to, and won't tell them where the entrance is. Let's also say that the plot has PCs discovering something in the town's church before heading off to the mines.

GM: "The village elder tells you should stay in town, and not go down into those haunted mines. He's not giving you the exact location."

Player 1: "We want to get that information out of him. I'm going to use Persuade"

If you let the player try, fairly (i.e. no arbitrary -20 penalties or anything like that to force a failure, just what the rules allow), is that giving him Narrative Control?

Typically no, since as I mentioned above,  the ability to say that your character tries something is always a player's right. However, you're gliding over a nuance: if the player declaration of the attempt automatically implies that the village elder is persuadable, then the player is exercising narrative control. On the other hand if the player only has the right to say his character is trying to persuade the village elder, and not the right to expect an actual dice roll with a limited modifier and a specific outcome if successful, then there's no NC on the player's part.

QuoteLet's say you allow it:

(rolls dice, player succeeds, GM fails)

So the players get the information, but you still want the players to go to the church first. Who has Narrative Control if you say something like this:

GM: "OK, you manage to get the information out of him, but in doing so, he puts the fear of God into you. He tells you must get a blessing from the local priest before heading down there."

On the other hand, if you just said something like:

GM: "OK, you get the information out of him, but he looks damn scared, and says something like 'God forgive me' after he spills the location."

Is that the same, or different?

Here you run into problems with the ambiguity of language. "Puts the fear of god into you" could refer to the rhetoric used, or to the actual emotional effect of the rhetoric. If the former, there's no significant difference. If the latter, then actually the GM is "exerting Narrative Control over the PCs' emotions". This is actually somewhat outside the local definition of NC from the other thread, so I'm extending the meaning by analogy and working from a baseline of "players control their characters, the GM controls everything else, including interactions between the characters and the world".

QuoteScene 3:
OK, let's fast-forward to a fight between a PC and a cave-dweller. I'll do this a different way around. The player will state an action, but his dice will come up bad, so he fails. What kind of thing would be said in response, and do any of these responses affect the amount of Narrative Control the player has in any way?

GM: "You and the cave-dweller are fighting, just inches away from a the edge of a deep, open, mineshaft"

Player: "I shove the cave-dweller down the mineshaft and to his death below!"

GM: "OK, roll Melee."

(rolls dice, fails)

Okay...

QuoteGM response A: "No you don't. Instead, you scream and run away in fear from his monstrous appearance!"

GM response B: "No you don't. Instead, you restrain yourself, clenching your fists and standing menacing over him."

GM response C: "No you don't. You get your hands on him, but he twists away, and you don't get to give him a good shove."

GM response D: "No you don't. You heave him over, but he catches onto a wooden prop about 10' down. He's dangling there."

GM response E: "Well you shove him over, and he lands -- crunch -- in a mangled heap, but he's still moving, so not dead yet."

Following my extension-by-analogy above, the GM is exerting Narrative Control over the PC in responses A & B. Responses C through E reflect no narrative control on the part of the player.

Hmm... I thought it was as simple as "Who can say what" in the game, and have that thing be true.

Quote from: warrenScene 1:

I see all of this as narrative control.  There's no conflict here - no one's asking you to roll your Sitting skill - but that doesn't mean it's not important or that it doesn't take place in the game.

If I wanted to block a player from bringing in the bale of hay, I'd check the rules!  Depending on the game, the bale of hay might only exist if the DM says it does.  Or it might exist but not have any effect on dice rolls.  Or the player might be able to bring it into play by making a roll.  So it would really depend.

If I wanted to block the player from shaking the elder's hand, I might want to have a quick roll.  Whatever social skill works for the game you're in.  

Is the other NPC there?  That's a similar thing to the bale of hay - maybe the player doesn't have that authority, maybe he does, maybe he has to make some kind of roll.

Quote from: warrenSo the players get the information, but you still want the players to go to the church first. Who has Narrative Control if you say something like this:

I don't think it's a matter of who has narrative control and who doesn't - both the player and the GM can have it at the same time.  The roll in this case determined that the guy was persuaded into revealing the information, but that's it.

Quote from: warrenWhat kind of thing would be said in response, and do any of these responses affect the amount of Narrative Control the player has in any way?

You can't really tell from these examples.  You can see that the player can't just say that the guy falls into the shaft and dies (they have to roll for it), but the GM can't just say NO HE DOESN'T either.

Quote from: warrenGM response A: "No you don't. Instead, you scream and run away in fear from his monstrous appearance!"

GM response B: "No you don't. Instead, you restrain yourself, clenching your fists and standing menacing over him."

A: The player might be able to say, "No, that doesn't happen."  Or he might have to roll a "Fear check" or something to keep himself from running.  Or he might have to deal with it.

B: The player might respond by saying "No, actually I swing at him but miss because he's so quick."

So you can't really tell who can say what.

I was playing Burning Empires the other day and I had this NPC tell his backstory through a flashback scene.  This bad guy had been left for dead by one of the other PCs during a military patrol.  So I'm saying that the one guy's PC tells everyone to "Fall back!  Leave him!"

Well, the player didn't like that so much.  He said that it went against his PC's personality.  I realized that I did not have the authority to narrate his character doing that sort of thing.  (Why not?  Because the rules of the game would not let me!  And I didn't want to do that anyway.)  

So we worked something out - the player said that his squad was overwhelmed and they thought the one guy was already dead, and they had to fall back.  And I said that the NPC didn't see it that way, but that was just his opinion and what the PC actually did was just what you said.

I think in that example I didn't have control over what his PC actually did.  I did have control over what the NPC thought of things and what actually happened to the NPC.  The player didn't have control over what had happened (the NPC's backstory), but he did have control over how his PC fit into that backstory.  (He could have said something like, "No, my guy would never leave him; he'd die first, so that guy couldn't have been left behind!"  Or he could have asked for a roll, or something.  Then I could have just switched things and said that his PC wasn't involved in this scene at all.)

I started a response, being the person who (I think) used the (shiny!) term in that other thread.  But I have to say, between Elliot and Balbinus, I've got little else to add.

I would just say that the issue was really about whether or not the GM could say the elders wife was not there - or even the hay for that matter. Are there games where the GM is not allowed to make that determination, but is only allowed to react to new facts introduced by players?  If so, that's Required Shared Narrative Control.  But if the GM has the choice of whether or not to allow the player to introduce the fact of the elder's lovely wife, then it's Voluntary Shared Narrative Control.

And that was just to provide the context...I don't want to hijack the thread in any way.

PS: It was Feanor, but I've gone with my real name now. I don't know why I even bothered, as that kind of secrecy on the Internet lost it's appeal to me years ago.

Quote from: Elliot WilenThe wife is a significant bit of NC; the GM might say, "His wife isn't there."

"You smile at the nearest woman standing close to the village elder. He glowers at you, while one of the peasants hastily mutters into your ear that the elder has been a widower for these past nine years, as well as notoriously suspicious of charming young fellows looking at his daughter like that."

Narrative control is a term invented by people who don't know, apparently, how to play Roleplaying Games, and want to be allowed to force the GM to do what they want in the game.

RPGPundit

BTW, if you did want to make the term more "general purpose", I suppose you could forget about the implicit GM/player split, since people might disagree over exactly where it "normally" stands. Then you can say that "narrative control" is the ability to narrate whatever happens. For example:

My "standard" distribution of narrative control is that players have NC over their characters' internal states and the things they try to do, while the GM has NC over everything else, including interactions between the characters and the world. There are a few exceptions, though. If a PC is affected by some sort of mind-control magic, then the GM may exercise some Narrative Control over the PC's emotional state or actions, for example. And when a player is engaged in combat, the player generally exerts some NC through the the combat mechanics--that that may be subject to negotiation with the GM, or even outright veto. In other words, NC may be negotiated in some circumstances. Whereas if we have a rule that I can always narrate X in circumstance Y, then that's a case of unconditional narrative control (in that circumstance). E.g. if I can always make a Diplomacy check against my skill against an NPC target's willpower, with a success indicating a one-level positive shift in their friendliness towards me, then my ability to invoke that mechanic at will is an example of unconditional narrative control.

Quote from: RPGPunditNarrative control is a term invented by people who don't know, apparently, how to play Roleplaying Games, and want to be allowed to force the GM to do what they want in the game.

RPGPundit

Not really, I think James came up with the term as a way of showing "those" people just where they wanted to take control away from the traditional GM.

Quote from: Elliot WilenNot really, I think James came up with the term as a way of showing "those" people just where they wanted to take control away from the traditional GM.

Hey now, let's not be putting motivations into my head.

I have to say I went to look up the term in the glossary over on the other forum, and I couldn't believe it...it's not there!  Now there are things like Credibility and Authority and Narrative, but no Narrative Control.  I would have thought it existed...but...I guess I am now guilty of creating a shiny new term.  Mmmm...there's that new term smell.  Or Elliot has gas.  Or both. :eek:

I didn't make any reference to "those" people, as far as I can recall.  I did use the term as a way of trying to help determine the difference, if one exists, between "Task" and "Conflict" resolution systems; no more, no less.

Quote from: Elliot WilenBTW, if you did want to make the term more "general purpose", I suppose you could forget about the implicit GM/player split, since people might disagree over exactly where it "normally" stands.

It's true people could disagree over where it "normally' stands in this day and age.  However, I would be remiss (and not get on the Pundit's good side) if I did not point out that there certainly is evidence as to where it stood until recently.

I see "Narrative Control" only in the broadest terms.  I'm using it only with respect to who, overall, has final say about what facts are introduced into the narrative. The specifics about who gets to narrate at what point was never the intention.

And just to confuse things you can call, James, who was Feanor, Jim.

EDIT: You know, Elliot, I have to take umbrage with that characterization.  You might have read it that way, but I certainly didn't try to frame the discussion about control being taken away from anyone.  I simply kept driving people to try and give me a god damn straight answer on how CR is really really different than TR - particulalry given the fact that we used "proto-CR," as someone called it, for years.

If it seems I'm upset, it's cause I am. you made me misspell words and everything.

Urp.

Well, I don't feel like going through that thread with a fine-toothed comb but let's just say you came up with the term because you needed it to cut through a lot of un-clarity.

QuoteI see "Narrative Control" only in the broadest terms. I'm using it only with respect to who, overall, has final say about what facts are introduced into the narrative. The specifics about who gets to narrate at what point was never the intention.

Not sure I see the difference, Jim. I mean if you're only looking at the narrative as a whole then pretty clearly any RPG worth playing requires shared narrative control to some degree or other. So maybe I'm just skipping over that issue and focusing on specific parts of the narrative. (?)

Man, Jim, I've never seen someone get so easily offended at someone who's trying to agree with you.

If it helps--maybe it doesn't--I think it was worthwhile to frame the discussion in a way that showed that, yes, conflict resolution is nothing special if it doesn't mean "required shared narrative control". And the "required" part does mean shifting control away from the traditional GM, or am I nuts and gassy?

Quote from: Elliot WilenMan, Jim, I've never seen someone get so easily offended at someone who's trying to agree with you.

It is frustrating, isn't it?  Cause when you describe how you play, I think, man...he'd be fun to have as a D&D GM. And then you go and piss me off.

Quote from: Elliot WilenIf it helps--maybe it doesn't--I think it was worthwhile to frame the discussion in a way that showed that, yes, conflict resolution is nothing special if it doesn't mean "required shared narrative control". And the "required" part does mean shifting control away from the traditional GM, or am I nuts and gassy?

It was an attempt to cut through some "unclarity" (my new favorite word!). The Required versus Voluntary was really the focus. It's related to the entire "Can the GM say No?" discussion. In just about every game I ever played in, the players were allowed to affect the narrative.  But it was always the GM who controlled it.

And you are right to point out that to shift the control away from the GM is non-traditional. But allowing players to affect the narrative is not. Does that difference make sense?

Hm. I will have to think about it on my way to McDonald's.