Someone posted this up over at the rpg geek and it left an impression.
Your examples of the possibilities of the narrative potential of the dice results revolve around combat. Not to dishearten anyone from a good dustup, but to incapsulate other aspects of a character's interaction with the world, described with immersive, exciting narrative.
What really matters is what’s worth 'fighting' for. A conflict emerges when a character needs or wants something that requires overcoming opposition. Opposition can be anything from convincing someone to your point of view, to an actual fight. A conflict represents a break in the normal flow of narrative. The dice should come out only when a conflict arises. There has to be some consequence to failure that someone cares about.
Once you have crystallized your intent, the players and the Games Master will set the stakes. This is built on risk vs. reward; the more you’re willing to risk, the more reward you can earn. The Games Master explains what happens if the roll succeeds or fails before the dice are rolled. Success always means that the intent you declared succeeds exactly as you described, narrated via the results in your dice pool. Failure is defined by the Games Master. Failing does not always just mean you do not succeed.
The whole conflict is a collaborative effort. Both parties have to put their Intent first. That's what drives play, and that's how players determine what they get out of winning a test. But it's equally important for the Games Master to communicate what their stakes are, so the players know what they’re risking. This has to be negotiated too. Whenever you pick up the dice, there should be real reward involved. Since that's the case, there's got to be real risk too.
Its important to make the point that in traditional ‘reactive’ role playing, ‘Narration’ of the characters actions is just a less focused version of Intent. The player states his reason for doing something and then tests an appropriate ability to perform the task. If the roll is successful, the player gets his Intent.
This is a real 'hidden' potential of the system. Try it out when your players are in conflict, but aren't in combat: see what rolling the bones can come up with to guide your narration!
I agree, Warhammer RP has taken a quantum leap, and it's a little disarming to most folks until they actually play.
The conversation was base on a review of the game and in particular about the functionality of the funky new dice and it got me thinking. What's he's describing is stock narrative game play straight from the forge. In particular games like Dogs in the Vineyard thrive on it, but it's seen in plenty of other swine RPG's as well.
The interesting bit is that he's bang on with how you could run these types of encounters. Now of course it's just a style and you could run any RPG like that, but I think the dice and actions in WFRP 3 do lead to this style of play perhaps a little better then a simple pass/fail mechanic.
To expand on his point a little. Lets take the simple scenario of talking your way past a guard.
You set the intent - Talk your way past the guard.
You set the Stakes (risk/reward) - If successful you get past the guard if you fail the guard is put on alert.
Now this works fine in a traditional game with a pass fail roll. However in WFRP 3 now with those funky dice that event can get more developed. You could get delay results, boons, chaos or comet results as well as simple pass/fail. Using the rules they could very easily help lead to a more interesting story event then initially brought up. Perhaps you succeed but are delayed meaning that some opening got missed. Perhaps the guard lets you through only to call in aid and set a trap on your return. There are lots of ways you could interpret the dice results beyond. That's before you even factor in any action cards some people may have.
Yes, I know any GM can create that narration but, and maybe it's just me, but I've always prefer it when the system supports it mechanically. What's interesting is that here we have a mainstream commercial product that has a rather narrative game mechanic built in.
You can easily play the game in a traditional action/reaction style of play but I think this potential narrative approach could really be interesting. It's something I'm certainly going to try from now on and see how it goes.
So I can't help but wonder, what the forgies are thinking. Here we have a high production value game game that's being put out by a huge publisher and not only does it, in many ways go against swine principles but at the same time it plays within them.