TheRPGSite

I play a lot of different types of games. Well, I run a lot of different kinds of games. I mean, I barely ever get to actually play, but that is another story (which looks like its going to change soon, yay).

I had ventured more into the narrative style, but played mostly hybrids.

But I had an epiphany running 5e D&D. About what it was I missed from running 2e AD&D, or Cyberpunk 2020, or L5R, or any of the other traditional RPGs that I hadn't played in a while.

I MISSED not having to think about meta-stuff. Not because it dragged me out of the immersion (because it never did), but because I would regularly forget to do it at all. I had run Fate the campaign before doing 5e, and I found I was a bit dissatisfied with how the game went. I felt like I was forgetting to compel, I was forgetting to award fate points, etc. And that is so much of that game.

But when I ran 5e, it just didn't matter. I didn't have to think about those things, it was just "what is happening right now". It let me focus on the game, and my brain didn't have to keep on two tracks at once.

I'm not saying I don't still like narrative style games. I still like Fate, even if I don't want to run it now, I still like FFG Star Wars, even if thinking up the advantage/threat can be a pain. And even with this trad conversion I doubt I will get into any of the OSR style games, I'm still a bit for more universal mechanics (I love 5e proficiency mechanic).

I just find that with my busy schedule, my brain being half fried most of the time from my work, a traditional game lets me be lazier while still providing a good game for my players. Maybe if I'm feeling ambitious, I'll come back to some narrative games, but for now, I just feel burnt out on THINKING about all that stuff.

Anyone else feel this way, rather than the immersion ruining, it just makes you have to do more mental paperwork than you would like?

I don't know if it's specifically narrative, but this is my frequent complaint about games that do cute stuff with game flow.
So, yeah, agreed.

Here, here. Mental paperwork is something I avoid in systems.

//Panjumanju

I had this epiphany years ago after a long 2+ year trial of various story games in various flavors. It causes headaches. I prefer RPGs, where the GM is the GM, the players play characters, the GM "runs the game" and the players "play it".

Perhaps if someone had framed the story game experience in a different manner vs. trying to tell me I was playing my games wrong, I may have taken to them better. As an organized story creation method, or an improv practice method, or a theme exploration method I may have enjoyed the experience. Instead, I was trying to game a story as a band-aid to the issues I was having with "trad" RPGs which frankly had FUCK all to do with mechanics.

Most of the stuff I thought was missing from my games regarding emotional context, or mental/emotional response, or concern or activity outside the common frame of "kill, pillage, plunder, rest" was because I had players who wanted to "kill, pillage, plunder, rest". I've learned to frame my games better. Set expectations and guide players to create characters I want to see explore the world vs. crossing my fingers and hoping shit magically goes the way I want.

You can run Witchcraft with as much shiny coolness flare on it as you can Dread, with less confusion about what your actually doing. "Laser Focus" was a buzzword cover for Lazy. GMs and Players need options. They thrive on them. Those options don't have to be a long catalog of numerical balanced thingies to optimize. Setting options, GMing advice, random tables, NPCs, personality types, adventure hooks...

After playing some "Laser Focused" games, I came away feeling like I just finished an amusement park ride. I looked back at it and thought "that was fun, I might try that again". The games I'm enamored with always give me a sense of wonder. Like I haven't finished exploring them yet. That there are more possibilities awaiting me between the covers.

I don't think this is just a matter of simple perception. The good games inspire creativity. The bad ones entice rote procedure masked as play.

Just my two cents (of course)...

Oddly, the thing I love most about Savage Worlds is the lack of book keeping. Everything is on the table: Cards, bennies, minis...I'm not tracking monster hit points, most of the time my players don't need to change anything on their sheets until after the adventure, etc. The extra bits actually make my job easier as a GM.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;805242Oddly, the thing I love most about Savage Worlds is the lack of book keeping. Everything is on the table: Cards, bennies, minis...I'm not tracking monster hit points, most of the time my players don't need to change anything on their sheets until after the adventure, etc. The extra bits actually make my job easier as a GM.

Savage Worlds is a game I can definitely still run. Bennies are the only part of it that makes me have to kind of "keep track" of extra bits.

The cards are really just kind of smart to me honestly. Very easy to read, and using visual items for wounds and stuff is nice.

Actually, I've taken to using poker chips for HP in D&D. I can glance around the table and easily see about where everyone is. You just need a 1hp, 3hp, and 10hp color, and you can track pretty easily (honestly until you start getting up there, you don't even need the 10hp color). (I like when I don't even need a pencil at the table except to take notes on what is going on in game).

Isn't that the same as with some narrative systems like basic roleplaying, unisystem and the storytelling system (new wod)? Those systems kinda fade into the background while playing, so you are not really aware of them anymore. I like that a lot. I think savage world does the same thing, only in a more traditional, combat/wargame focused way.

I would never consider those narrative systems. When people talk about narrative systems, they mean games that have narrative MECHANICS.

Things like Fate Points, or the FFG Star Wars Threat/Advantage thing (which I still like, but is extra work), MHRP plot points. Stuff like that.

WoD, BRP, and Unisystem are all pretty trad.

I have come to see narrative ideas as good spices to the dish, rather than the entire meal.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805246I would never consider those narrative systems. When people talk about narrative systems, they mean games that have narrative MECHANICS.

Things like Fate Points, or the FFG Star Wars Threat/Advantage thing (which I still like, but is extra work), MHRP plot points. Stuff like that.

WoD, BRP, and Unisystem are all pretty trad.

Cinematic Unisystem has Drama Points which function about like MHRP Plot Points.

As I get older I simply go for systems that are easier to do.  Mainly because I am tired of clunky systems that take up my time and designing that perfect character that takes hours to do.  I want systems that get right to the point, easy to understand, and just fade to the background when being played.

I prefer to use systems that are almost automatic, so narrative role-playing can go uninterrupted.

I've played and GM'd a variety of rpgs. I personally like Earthdawn as my goto setting/system, but have GM'd a couple of 'narrative' games. The clunky ones fell apart and I've had more fun at a murder mystery dinner.

One of the better ones was The Mountain Witch. I especially liked how the system pits the GM vs the players AND the players vs each other. The group conflict resolution means ronin working together and spending Trust on each other tend to eventually overcome GM opposition. Tack onto that the Betrayal side of the Trust mechanic, and the fact that each player has a 'Dark Fate' card (allows players free narration as long as it's on topic), and the very weird mythological Japanese setting, and you get a good game indeed. Since everyone is tasked at the beginning with the specific goal of climbing Mt Fuji and killing the sorcerer at the peak citadel, that serves to drive the Stakes of the game. The Dark Fate cards modify this, of course, and it's the story that comes out and the feel of why the characters succeeded or failed that made it interesting to run. Also, running swordfights with Tengu through the forest into pitched battles between early smuggled gunpowder armed Shogun troops and iron club wielding oni. Having the party consistently flee the sorcerer's lieutenant, a forest cat in Portuguese boots wielding two wakizashi, was also quite fun.

Once I got how the mechanical interaction w/ the narrative worked and studied the 'adventure' material, I was able to get into that 'flow' state while running the game. Then it was just glancing and the props and notes. :D

Quote from: jan paparazzi;805244Isn't that the same as with some narrative systems like basic roleplaying, unisystem

These two are not narrativist systems, in fact they are more old skool than most games out there.

Quote from: trechriron;805240I had this epiphany years ago after a long 2+ year trial of various story games in various flavors. It causes headaches. I prefer RPGs, where the GM is the GM, the players play characters, the GM "runs the game" and the players "play it".

Agreed, and what amazed me was that it was 5e D&D that reminded me after decades of D&D hate!

Mind you, it applies just as well to RuneQuest, Traveller and Savage Worlds.

Now, where is my copy of Witchcraft?

Fate Guilt (n): A feeling of sadness, discontent or failure felt by a GM who after running a successful session of Fate realises he may not have used the toolset to its full potential.

Okay, so Fate Guilt isn't really a thing, but it should be given how often I've read accounts of GMs who felt they let the side down because they didn't use compels or consequences as much as they might have.

It is also utter nonsense.

Fate gives you a lot of tools that help support you in your job of running a good game. To what extent you use these tools depends on what happens in play, on the night.

There is no Platonic ideal number of compels per session for which you should be aiming. The system does not break that easily. The authors of Fate are very explicit how everything in Fate can be dialed up or down however it's message that often seems to get lost.

If the game is running smoothly you are doing your job. If you find that you suddenly need some extra mechanism to model a situation or accentuate the drama of the moment then you can draw from all the cool toys Fate provides you.

Or in simpler terms Fate's job is to support the service, the group's purpose is not to service Fate. Otherwise it's just the tail wagging the dog.

That said, I will agree that even just deciding what to dial up or down can be overhead. It's akin to the stress that comes form having too much choice. That's why with Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands I aimed to dial right down the baseline metagame element so that anyone can run BHAW without feeling Fate Guilt afterwards.

It's different the FFG Star Wars. The whole "Yes, but" and "No, and" style of action resolution part of the system balance and cannot really be dialed up or down. I found it to be pain and the after the while the GM was straining to add a spin to every single dice roll, so I understand entirely what you are saying.

I think it didn't help that I was using FATE Accelerated. There is just so little going on with it cut down that much that without compels/fate points moving around a lot, there just ISN'T MUCH THERE.

If I'd been using a more robust version of FATE it probably wouldn't have bothered me as much.

Well, apparently v2 of Fate is a lot less fate pointish.

I haven't gotten a chance to read it in depth, but it seems potentially more trad-like.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805246I would never consider those narrative systems. When people talk about narrative systems, they mean games that have narrative MECHANICS.

Things like Fate Points, or the FFG Star Wars Threat/Advantage thing (which I still like, but is extra work), MHRP plot points. Stuff like that.

WoD, BRP, and Unisystem are all pretty trad.

Actually you are right. I think the books and the fluff in those books invite for playing more investigation and social interaction instead of more action focused games. But the systems itself are very traditional. I was wrong.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805234I MISSED not having to think about meta-stuff. Not because it dragged me out of the immersion (because it never did), but because I would regularly forget to do it at all. I had run Fate the campaign before doing 5e, and I found I was a bit dissatisfied with how the game went. I felt like I was forgetting to compel, I was forgetting to award fate points, etc. And that is so much of that game.

OMG BRAIN DAMAGE ;)

On a more serious note, this is sort of what happened to me when I ran FATE. I hated coming up with Consequences or handling things as scene Aspects (e.g. "the ship deck's On Fire, spend a Fate Point to brave the flames") and such.

So many games look good on paper and turn out not to jive with us in actual play. FATE was one of them for me.

Welcome back home. Hope you'll stick around. :D

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805234Anyone else feel this way, rather than the immersion ruining, it just makes you have to do more mental paperwork than you would like?

I have found myself returning to traditional style of RPGing in recent years and eshewing intrusive, complex or involved metagame mechanics. However, I still find simple, direct and fun metagame mechanics to be an excellent tool for that style. It helps me considerably as a GM to reduce prep and communicates player ideas to me without hassle.

TBH FATE is probably one of the most intrusive attempts to integrate metagame mechanics into a traditional style RPG IMO. However, I enjoy Dungeon World, Atlantis, and Mutant Year Zero as they are so hassle free in comparison. I also enjoyed D&D5e's personality traits and and Inspiration for the same reasons.

I don't get Fate or most narrative systems. They just leave me puzzled and frustrated.

Surely you could FATE up your 5e by treating Inspiration more like Fate points, including using compels.

I like narrative mechanics to 'sand down' the rough edges of trad games.

Rough edges being results or series of events that are dull, basically.

Quote from: Will;805376Rough edges being results or series of events that are dull, basically.

What are examples of dull events or dull series of events?

I fail to hit the ogre because I can't roll over a five the entire battle.

Whiff whiff whiff. And this doesn't lead to interesting tension, just the combat lasting an extra round or two.

I meet my nemesis, and it plays out like every other combat.

Quote from: Will;805413I fail to hit the ogre because I can't roll over a five the entire battle.

In which case the ogre probably hits you and you have to decide to do something different - like run away. Sounds more interesting than one more dead monster to me.

QuoteI meet my nemesis, and it plays out like every other combat.

You'll have to elaborate on this. Because if your nemesis is the ogre above, your inability to hit him sounds different than every other battle - unless you never roll over a five in any combat.

Will in the two examples above, it sounds like you have an idea for how the combat is supposed to play out regardless of the dice. Which is a problem if you are playing a game where how combat plays out is determined by die rolls. Here are three solutions that work for me (they may not work for you).

1. Embrace the Die Roll: Let go of my preconception of how combat is supposed to go. Instead try to enjoy how combat ends up going in play.

(a) If my character is whiffing, get into that. React in character. Yell, swear, and complain at fate or failure.

(b) Make up an interesting explanation for why my character keeps failing. In one Star Trek session my extremely competent Vulcan Science officer totally flubbed his sensor roll and couldn't detect anything on the planet. Without missing a beat I said, "Captain, some sort of energy distortion is interfering with our sensors." The other players and the GM liked that so the planet indeed had energy distortions that affected sensors. It isn't that my PC is incompetent, it is that the task is very difficult.

(c) Realize this scene ends up being about the other PCs not your PC. Let them have a chance to shine or to save your character. Action heroes in teams help each other out. Embrace the moment.

2. Bennies: Play a game like the old 007, WEG Star Wars, or Honor+Intrigue that includes limited resources to allow the PC to improve a die roll or even reroll when it really matters. If it is important to you that your PC succeeds now, then spend the resources to succeed (or to at least increase your chance to succeed). If it isn't important enough to spend resources on, then see 1. above.

3. If you can't live with failure, then don't roll the dice. Just what it says. Just narrate what happens without rolling the dice. To use the ogre example: if it is only a question of how long it takes the PC(s) to defeat the ogre, why bother rolling the dice at all? The GM can just say "you defeat the ogre." or let the PCs narrate how they succeed. Nothing in traditional RPGs requires that every damn thing be rolled out in detail unless it matters.

Quote from: Will;805413I fail to hit the ogre because I can't roll over a five the entire battle.

Whiff whiff whiff. And this doesn't lead to interesting tension, just the combat lasting an extra round or two.

I don't get why that isn't interesting... assuming the ogre is trying to kill you and not asleep on the floor. If its defeat isn't a foregone conclusion (in which case do as Bren says and just narrate it) then there's a race on to destroy each other and you are losing. I can see it might be hard to hit something with a long reach like that... difficult to get inside its defenses without getting mauled.
Maybe there's a way to use the environment to your advantage, make use of a narrow doorway the ogre can't fit through? Confuse it somehow?
I do like the added fun of something like Runequest's combat maneuvers or DCC's 'Mighty Deeds'... I don't think of those as 'narrative', but maybe they are.

I think the battle going badly against the Ogre can a lot of times be more interesting than it going well. Its your character struggling. Maybe the other party members have to bail you out. Maybe you have to start to consider retreat.

Not having anything to counteract that makes it MORE interesting. I don't know what is going to happen, and all I have control over is what my character ATTEMPTs to do to deal with it.

As for the other side, a fight with a nemesis can be all kinds of things, and still be interesting. People talk about how anticlimactic it is if they go down too easy, but I still remember the game where we found the "big bad guy" of what we were trying to stop, and my berserker character oneshotted him at the top of the initiative on the first round of combat. It was a system with hit locations, and I literally lopped his head off in the first 2 seconds of combat. (he had a shield up that would stop up to 100 points of damage (an absurd amount in the system) but if you did over 100 it all went through. I rolled psycho well and his head was gone). It was cool. Everyone remembers it.

Unpredictability and lack of control is kind of fun in and of itself.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805421I think the battle going badly against the Ogre can a lot of times be more interesting than it going well. Its your character struggling. Maybe the other party members have to bail you out. Maybe you have to start to consider retreat.

Not having anything to counteract that makes it MORE interesting. I don't know what is going to happen, and all I have control over is what my character ATTEMPTs to do to deal with it.

As for the other side, a fight with a nemesis can be all kinds of things, and still be interesting. People talk about how anticlimactic it is if they go down too easy, but I still remember the game where we found the "big bad guy" of what we were trying to stop, and my berserker character oneshotted him at the top of the initiative on the first round of combat. It was a system with hit locations, and I literally lopped his head off in the first 2 seconds of combat. (he had a shield up that would stop up to 100 points of damage (an absurd amount in the system) but if you did over 100 it all went through. I rolled psycho well and his head was gone). It was cool. Everyone remembers it.

Unpredictability and lack of control is kind of fun in and of itself.

That outcome feels very Game of Thrones like.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805421People talk about how anticlimactic it is if they go down too easy, but I still remember the game where...

We still retell the story in Call of Cthulhu when Tex one-shotted the big bad in Shadows of Yog Sothoth.

Spoiler

Tex, a six-shooter wearing PC from (where else) Texas decided to accept the invitation to dinner from Baron Hauptmann. Dinner was at his creepy old castle in Transylvania. Did I mention that Tex was none too bright. Well Tex, accompanied by Reverend Thomas "Once again it is time to joust with the forces of Darkness" Pentacle, go up to the castle for dinner and the Baron Drugs their food. As Tex starts to feel woozy from the effects of the drug he quick draws his trusty six shooter and (after a couple of awesome rolls) plugs the Baron right between the eyes killing him deader than a doornail. Good news right!

Wrong. The Baron's spirit possed the body of one of his loyal Romani retainers. This was an inferior shell to his previous form plus he wasn't ready to make a change, plus his secret was now revealed so he had to leave the castle - flapping away on the back of a Byahkee. Oh, yeah, and he left our two characters tied up down in the castle dungeon with his other loyal retainer who had orders to torture us to death.

But we all recall the amazing shot.

Uh, Bren, re: bennies... what do you think I'm suggesting as 'a little big of narrative mechanics'?

Heh. That's exactly what I like, and why.

Quote from: Will;805459Uh, Bren, re: bennies... what do you think I'm suggesting as 'a little big of narrative mechanics'?

Heh. That's exactly what I like, and why.

No idea what you were suggesting. It sounded like you just hated not hitting the ogre. Which in many systems with bennies is something that will still occur if you roll bad. Bennies just up the odds you will hit or give you a very limited number of chances to automatically succeed. Bennies aren't designed to prevent you from spending 10 rounds killing an ogre instead of the 2 rounds you might prefer unless killing the ogre really matters. Which seems to apply to your nemesis example, but not your ogre example.

Also, bennies were only one of the three options I listed. And in many games that have bennies, using a benny simply doesn't guarantee you won't wiff. Personally I don't consider the 1983 Mayfair Games James Bond 007 game a narrative RPG but it most assuredly includes bennies. It was the first game I read which did include bennies.

Quote from: Bren;805468Also, bennies were only one of the three options I listed. And in many games that have bennies, using a benny simply doesn't guarantee you won't wiff. Personally I don't consider the 1983 Mayfair Games James Bond 007 game a narrative RPG but it most assuredly includes bennies. It was the first game I read which did include bennies.

I think Bennies are narrative in nature, in that they don't directly equate to an ability from the PC's perspective. So the player spends them from the perspective of a narrator or author, even if to a very limited extent.

And I agree with you that most people wouldn't consider an RPG to be narrative due to a single such narrative mechanic. But that was sort of Will's original point. Narrative mechanics have been used to a limited extent in traditional RPGs for some time to help round out the odd rough edge.

The structure of bennies is typically narrative -- player wants to push the normal rule results when it matters to the player.

And yeah, Skywalker gets me. :)

My view is that narrative mechanics is another form of metagaming which is the one of the few ways to cheat at tabletop roleplaying.

Everything that been attempted with narrative mechanics can be handled with either a player or the referee stepping out of game and go "You know, what do you guys think of this?". If the group comes to a consensus on the idea then go for it. You don't need to pussy foot around with points, dice, or gadgets to make this happen.

What on the referee needs to realize that the details of a particular encounter or in-game locale is based on a filter. The filter being what important or interesting in the referee's judgement. And sometimes the referees doesn't make the right call or things have changed with individual players from the last session.

If a player or players finds what going on boring then the referee needs to think about what he knows about the players and their characters. Then find a another set of details that they would find interesting. What happens doesn't have to be probable only possible.  Although too many coincidences occurring in succession has it own problems.

It is a bit of an art but the general idea to be aware of what going on and to keep fine tuning things to keep up with the players. The referee needs to let go of the idea that the campaign has to proceed in a particular direction.

Last, if the character is suffering negative consequences , like repeatably missing with a succession of 5's when fighting a ogre, or a result of bad plan by the player. Then that how the die rolls so to speak. Without the risk the reward isn't much of an reward.

The games I have greatly enjoyed that treated story fall more comfortably into old categories than into the present rpg-spinoff storygame one.

Tales of  the Arabian Nights combined boardgame and paragraph-game conventions. Like Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, it departed from most paragraph games by not being focused on combat. The unusual storytelling aspect was a variant option in which players could win additional points by improvising brief (2-minute, iirc) stories on which the other players voted. Otherwise, it was just a matter of the paragraph text (which was unusual only in the quality of wriiting).

The card play in Dark Cults had a strategic game aspect but served mainly as a springboard for imagination: What story can we tell about this picture? The players were in two teams (Life and Death) with unabashedly authorial positions, no confusion with role-playing. In short, it was just a little twist on the age-old informal practice of collaborative story-telling.

Prince Valiant was a pretty traditonal (and mechanically simple) rpg with optional elaborations that allowed players some "narrative control" powers (Inspire Lust, Escape Enemies, or suchlike) or even - with the main GM's approval - temporarily to take over GMing.

Estar, like every other thing in gaming, you don't have to have mechanics. But like everything else, it can be handy to have mechanics, so people know what to expect and don't have to debate each time.

And yeah, you can just deal with what dice give you. I just have often found that a bit disappointing.

The techniques suggested in Prince Valiant were very simple, and put the game immediately back into world-situation mode (what the Dungeon World guys call "the fiction"). What I don't like about a lot of so-called narrative-focus games is that they seem to me really focused on the abstraction instead of narrative.

In a fight in old D&D, we quickly toss dice and get hit point results: abstraction done and done. Want to describe the action in more substantial terms? Just do it! If you care who does it, establish table conventions.

If we're going to spend more time on the abstraction, I want it to model something - as opposed to being a "narrative control decider" made complicated to be interesting for its own distracting sake.

Even if it's supposedly modeling something, a "too cute" novelty that draws attention to itself (a subjective matter, of  course) irks me. TSR put out a "Saga System" Marvel Heroes game that I could never bring myself to play. Fate Cards, Trumps, Edge, etc. - forget it!

Quote from: Will;805496Estar, like every other thing in gaming, you don't have to have mechanics. But like everything else, it can be handy to have mechanics, so people know what to expect and don't have to debate each time.

What you missed about my comments is that there are mechanics. The mechanics of good communication as applied to tabletop roleplaying sessions. It not as sexy as spending fate points but overall it is more flexible and applies to a broader variety of situations.

To be fair, the good communication skills that are normally taught are useful but not entirely applicable to tabletop roleplaying. A referee needs to learn to how tweak the various techniques so that effective communication results.

And it something that die rolls or counting points can't fix because you can't turn good communication into a game. Either it happens or it doesn't.

Quote from: Will;805496And yeah, you can just deal with what dice give you. I just have often found that a bit disappointing.

It has been my observation when that occurs it because the referee is not doing his job of presenting the setting.

I had some players as recently as two months ago suffer some very negative consequences that wasn't death. One of them what a player who was experienced with my games and was OK because he need that while the situation sucked he had options.

The other didn't, wanted to tear up his character sheet and so on. I sat down with and pointed out everything thing, he encountered that he could use to turn the situation to his advantage.  And because I established that I was the type of referee who focuses on what the players want to do. He knew that if he pursued these options that I would follow up on them. And he calmed down and showed up at the next session.

There are other referees who ran into similar situations, this was at a game store with multiple campaigns going on, and it didn't get handled so well.

The only time I find my techniques not working if the player wants to cheat, metagame or has specifics that I like to call "victory conditions". I had player bail out of a Champions game because he just could not get it into his head that Kinetics super powers didn't work the way he wanted them to work. That what he wanted was vastly overpowered compared to what was available to the other players. That he could get there but for now he was at a lower level ability inline with the other characters of the campaign.

Quote from: Skywalker;805482I think Bennies are narrative in nature, in that they don't directly equate to an ability from the PC's perspective. So the player spends them from the perspective of a narrator or author, even if to a very limited extent.

And I agree with you that most people wouldn't consider an RPG to be narrative due to a single such narrative mechanic. But that was sort of Will's original point. Narrative mechanics have been used to a limited extent in traditional RPGs for some time to help round out the odd rough edge.

OK. I think it is not quite that simple, which is why I mentioned games that are fairly traditional in design like James Bond and WEG Star Wars as examples of bennies.

Bennies that are used to create things in universe are different than bennies that allow a reroll or a bonus die. The former are clearly operating on an authorial (or narrative) level rather than a character level. The latter can be operated on a character level. I toss in a benny when my character wants to succeed really bad. That's a character, not an author decision analogous to a character choosing to cast a spell or use a potion to increase their chance of success.

For some types of bennies there is even an in-universe analog to the benny, i.e. Force Points in Star Wars correspond to strength in the Force and as such are resources the character can decide in universe to access. But you should already know that Skywalker. ;)

Quote from: Will;805486The structure of bennies is typically narrative -- player wants to push the normal rule results when it matters to the player.

That's a way to use bennies, but as I mentioned it is not the only way or a required way to use bennies. Star Wars Force Points being one of the best counter examples.

To me, disappointment in the dice matters when (as happened in GURPS and Rolemaster) it destroys after minutes of total play - in the first game-second of peril - a character that took hours to generate. In that case, I would not mind a referee setting aside that outcome. But I don't feel the situation is improved by needing to "spend Fate Points" or jump through some other such hoop to get that consideration.

Quote from: Bren;805508OK. I think it is not quite that simple, which is why I mentioned games that are fairly traditional in design like James Bond and WEG Star Wars as examples of bennies.

I agree that there are different types of "bennies" and Force points are a good example of one with an in-character perspective.

Your first post didn't appear to demonstrate that you understood that, or that you got what Will was saying. Hence my clarification :)

My group and I grew up on WoD games primarily, given we were teenagers in the 90's. They were certainly more "Narrative" to us than say, 2nd edition Dungeons and Dragons, but still very traditional.

Story games just never really worked for us, the occasional story game mechanic would be fine, but in the end, while my players were interested in the "Stories" taking place within the game...they were also very interested in the actual "Game" mechanic... and Story games seem to get away from that by focusing so much on the meta-game side of things.

My group and I have fallen in love with Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition though. I never thought I could love a class based game so much, but right now it's what I want to run for the forseeable future.

It's made me look into some OSR games as well. I got Stars Without Number and Silent Legions (From the Kickstarter) and worked on converting them to 5th edition (Was exactly difficult) now I can get my Lovecraftian Horror Kick and Space Sci Fi Kick from classic rules too... and they just seem so much better than any of the old complicated story aspected games I use to associate with this sorta thing...

Something about the simplicity of the mechanics falls away and just lets the players and GM focus on the story going on.

It's why I didn't like Savage Worlds and Marvel Heroic and games of that sort. Takes me right out of the game at hand.

I thought of a good analogy to explain my problem with many narrative (and other nontraditional) games:

It's like trying to have a conversation in another language which you've learned formally but don't speak fluently.
At every step you have to stop, translate in your head, then repeat the words you've learned mostly know what you mean.

You can do it, and I'm sure it'd be wonderful to learn the language so well I can just... SPEAK it without translating, but until then it's slow and frustrating.