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Author Topic: How To Play Narrative Games If You Are An Immersionist  (Read 5938 times)

Spinachcat

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How To Play Narrative Games If You Are An Immersionist
« Reply #30 on: February 24, 2016, 04:00:38 AM »
Quote from: CRKrueger;880483
Maybe the fact that I GM all the time means I have an outlet for world building, so when I play, I want to *play*.


Exactly. When I play, I don't need to beg, borrow or steal any of the GM's power to have a good time. I wield the Gygaxian Axe far more than enough of the time.

jhkim

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How To Play Narrative Games If You Are An Immersionist
« Reply #31 on: February 25, 2016, 09:07:37 PM »
A bit late - but first of all, thanks, Asen. I thought the original points were pretty good for these purposes.

I'd have two points here about the overall advice:

1) Not everyone always wants pure immersion or pure storytelling. It's pretty common to sometimes enjoy both, but want a little shift one way or the other.

2) Sometimes people enjoy in particular immersing in their storytelling. I've certainly greatly enjoyed A Thousand and One Nights - where you have a character who engages in telling stories with the other PCs.

I think the point about competence is good, but could use a bit of an example. If I'm playing a legendary expert engineer who knows every bit of his ship and how it works - then other PCs often will ask my character things like "Can we do X?" and "How long will it take to do Y?"  In some games, this always results in me turning to the GM and asking the same question - which doesn't give the feel of being an expert. If I can actually give a definitive answer back, then it can help the feel of being an expert.

On the tangent of personality mechanics,

Quote from: Itachi;880437
Not necessarily. Have you never had a reaction that surprised even yourself ? I know I had. Real people do not always act in the most reasonable and logical way as characters in a role playing game do. These mechanics also help with that.

Quote from: Nexus;880456
I feel the same way about social mechanics. We're not really consciously in control of everything we do and decide. I've been talked into some amazingly stupid shit in the past and made really poor choices. So I can see my character doing some that are "out of my control."


Conversely - When I'm immersing in a character in an RPG, I often find that I don't act in the most reasonable and logical way - and often make choices that surprise me, just like I do in real life. By getting into character, the same surprising, unconscious decisions can happen - and they're often really interesting for having done so.

That doesn't mean personality mechanics are wrong - but they're a matter of taste, and not necessary in order to get surprising and/or illogical behavior.

Nexus

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How To Play Narrative Games If You Are An Immersionist
« Reply #32 on: February 25, 2016, 09:44:57 PM »
Quote from: jhkim;881425


Conversely - When I'm immersing in a character in an RPG, I often find that I don't act in the most reasonable and logical way - and often make choices that surprise me, just like I do in real life. By getting into character, the same surprising, unconscious decisions can happen - and they're often really interesting for having done so.

That doesn't mean personality mechanics are wrong - but they're a matter of taste, and not necessary in order to get surprising and/or illogical behavior.


I didn't say they were. I said I enjoyed them and social mechanics are guides and assistance for those times when I don't feel totally immersed. And because they bring some randomness and arbitrary feel to such situations. I can and do make in characters choices for my PCs but sometimes I want to see what fate (or their nature as represented by the mechanics) decrees.
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crkrueger

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How To Play Narrative Games If You Are An Immersionist
« Reply #33 on: February 26, 2016, 12:53:40 AM »
But if you ask the GM and he tells you (and only you) that it will take 6 hours to get the Warp Drive online, then you tell the captain it will take 10 hours, and then you actually do it in 5, you're a frickin' miracle worker, just like Scotty. :D

If you just asspull 7 hours, and that "makes it so" then 7 hours it is...boring. ;)
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AsenRG

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How To Play Narrative Games If You Are An Immersionist
« Reply #34 on: February 26, 2016, 02:24:18 AM »
Quote from: jhkim;881425
A bit late - but first of all, thanks, Asen. I thought the original points were pretty good for these purposes.

You're welcome:). Glad you liked them.

Quote
I'd have two points here about the overall advice:

1) Not everyone always wants pure immersion or pure storytelling. It's pretty common to sometimes enjoy both, but want a little shift one way or the other.

Never said everyone wants it all the time. Personally, I prefer immersion...but sometimes, say when I want to try a new game, I can easily play in a mixed mode, or in pure storytelling mode (as I used to do with a short-lived game of Heroquest 2 - I was imagining myself writing the character's biography, decades later).

Quote
2) Sometimes people enjoy in particular immersing in their storytelling. I've certainly greatly enjoyed A Thousand and One Nights - where you have a character who engages in telling stories with the other PCs.

Yes, it is, and I keep telling myself I should try the "1001 Nights" board/storytelling game. Or did you mean the indie RPG title?

Anyway, I doubt there's popular demand for a "how to play traditional games if you immerse in storytelling" thread:D!

Quote
I think the point about competence is good, but could use a bit of an example. If I'm playing a legendary expert engineer who knows every bit of his ship and how it works - then other PCs often will ask my character things like "Can we do X?" and "How long will it take to do Y?"  In some games, this always results in me turning to the GM and asking the same question - which doesn't give the feel of being an expert. If I can actually give a definitive answer back, then it can help the feel of being an expert.

Well, to me it's "I'm just that good and that's why I can tell"...but that might be part of why it works, yes.

Quote

Conversely - When I'm immersing in a character in an RPG, I often find that I don't act in the most reasonable and logical way - and often make choices that surprise me, just like I do in real life. By getting into character, the same surprising, unconscious decisions can happen - and they're often really interesting for having done so.

That doesn't mean personality mechanics are wrong - but they're a matter of taste, and not necessary in order to get surprising and/or illogical behavior.

Well, if that was the only criteria for immersion, then I know some players who are immersed all the time, regardless of system:p!

Quote from: CRKrueger;881441
But if you ask the GM and he tells you (and only you) that it will take 6 hours to get the Warp Drive online, then you tell the captain it will take 10 hours, and then you actually do it in 5, you're a frickin' miracle worker, just like Scotty. :D

If you just asspull 7 hours, and that "makes it so" then 7 hours it is...boring. ;)

Maybe, but it saves you so much time;).
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crkrueger

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How To Play Narrative Games If You Are An Immersionist
« Reply #35 on: February 26, 2016, 03:07:36 AM »
Quote from: AsenRG;881446
Maybe, but it saves you so much time;).


Sounds like...

Quote from: Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus
Too many notes.
:D
Even the the "cutting edge" storygamers for all their talk of narrative, plot, and drama are fucking obsessed with the god damned rules they use. - Estar

Yes, Sean Connery's thumb does indeed do megadamage. - Spinachcat

Isuldur is a badass because he stopped Sauron with a broken sword, but Iluvatar is the badass because he stopped Sauron with a hobbit. -Malleus Arianorum

"Tangency Edition" D&D would have no classes or races, but 17 genders to choose from. -TristramEvans

RPGPundit

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How To Play Narrative Games If You Are An Immersionist
« Reply #36 on: February 26, 2016, 10:31:27 PM »
Mostly one just shouldn't.
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AsenRG

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« Reply #37 on: February 27, 2016, 01:15:27 AM »
Quote from: RPGPundit;881659
Mostly one just shouldn't.


It's not about should I or shouldn't I.  It's about how.

Also, "you shouldn't play this game" is a statement befitting the outrage brigade.
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crkrueger

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« Reply #38 on: February 27, 2016, 02:07:30 AM »
Quote from: AsenRG;881667
It's not about should I or shouldn't I.  It's about how.

Also, "you shouldn't play this game" is a statement befitting the outrage brigade.


More like "How do you play basketball with an American Football?"

You just shouldn't. :D

Seriously though, to me it's almost like a word riddle as if the title was:
How to Play Boardgames if You're a Computer Gamer?

You don't play boardgames as a computer gamer.   When you play computer games you're a computer gamer and when you play boardgames, you're a boardgamer.

Same thing here, when I want to be an Immersionist, I don't go enlist for a campaign with a narrative system.

Now narrative games contain different amounts of Narrativium (to use a phrase used by Benn over at Modiphius).  Some can be excised fairly easily, and roleplayers have been discarding such narrative tack-ons for decades.

Some games though, and this is relatively new thing, contain Narrativium that isn't tacked on, it's the very foundation of the system, and it's not simply discarding a mechanic, it's ripping the game to pieces and rebuilding it from the ground up.

At that point, you're chopping up the football, resewing it so it's round and then trying to play basketball with it - just get a basketball.
Even the the "cutting edge" storygamers for all their talk of narrative, plot, and drama are fucking obsessed with the god damned rules they use. - Estar

Yes, Sean Connery's thumb does indeed do megadamage. - Spinachcat

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AsenRG

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How To Play Narrative Games If You Are An Immersionist
« Reply #39 on: February 27, 2016, 09:49:26 AM »
Quote from: CRKrueger;881676
More like "How do you play basketball with an American Football?"

You just shouldn't. :D

Sounds to me like the argument "you shouldn't mix chess with punching people in the face". Any yet, chessboxing exists, because someone, somewhere, thought it would be fun to do exactly that:D!

And you could, probably, play American Football with a basketball, though I've never tried that. It might add some specifics due to the ball, but change isn't always for the worse;).

Now, trying to play European football with a basketball is likely to get you some pain in the ankles. But that's, in my experience, more like trying to play an immersionist game with a system that was designed first and foremost to be a game, like a certain edition of D&D that's really not popular on this board:p.

Then again, this still wouldn't be "I shouldn't":). It's "I've found no way and have no patience to experiment".
With most narrative games, I've found a way that works for me and for at least some others;).
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« Reply #40 on: February 28, 2016, 09:40:31 PM »
Quote from: AsenRG;881667
It's not about should I or shouldn't I.  It's about how.

Also, "you shouldn't play this game" is a statement befitting the outrage brigade.


No, the Outrage Brigade would say "no one should be allowed the chance to play this game".
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« Reply #41 on: March 01, 2016, 04:09:08 PM »
Also, FATE is actually fucking easy to play as a totally standard and Immersive game.  Just take out the storygamey parts that make it suck. You're left with a fine game for certain genres.
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AsenRG

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« Reply #42 on: March 01, 2016, 04:17:36 PM »
Quote from: RPGPundit;882142
No, the Outrage Brigade would say "no one should be allowed the chance to play this game".

Which is how the generic "you shouldn't play" reads to me, too, as a modern "thou shall not":).

Quote from: RPGPundit;882614
Also, FATE is actually fucking easy to play as a totally standard and Immersive game.  Just take out the storygamey parts that make it suck. You're left with a fine game for certain genres.

That's exactly the point of this thread.
And this game exists, it's called Fudge;).
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« Reply #43 on: March 03, 2016, 07:08:02 PM »
Yeah, well you can keep the FATE points and the aspects, just use them in a way that isn't storygamey.
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AsenRG

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« Reply #44 on: March 03, 2016, 08:58:45 PM »
Quote from: RPGPundit;883139
Yeah, well you can keep the FATE points and the aspects, just use them in a way that isn't storygamey.


Yeah, that's what Fudge does,or at least the versions I am familiar with. It's part of the inspiration for this thread,  actually.
In fact, FUDGE was meant as a light system to facilitate immersion.
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