Personally I don't make any attempt to follow dramatic structures (Acts and so forth) unless I am actively striving for genre emulation of a genre that is known for its use of dramatic structures. But then we start getting into genre emulation and to my mind genre emulation is definitionally outside the category of simulation. There's no such thing as simulated genre.

But than again, I am guessing that most experienced GMs have purposefully ended a session with a "cliffhanger" ending upon occasion? And that is sure as hell a piece of dramatic structure. So I can't say it is something I avoid 100%.

But technique, on the other hand, is something that has constant uses, other than during those occasions when things are being expressed purely in game mechanic terms without the slightest narrative dressing.

Like, I know some people HATE the concept of "scene framing" but all it is is when you transition from one scene to another. When you say "3 days later you arrive at Skull Castle" or "you are on watch that night when you hear a branch crack somewhere outside the light of your fire" you are using your words to frame a new scene. And doing that effectively is a pretty key GMing skill. Is a tavern scene dragging on too long and going nowhere interesting? Time to say, "Okay, so the next morning..." and again that is something that is done based on narrative principles even if it goes unanalyzed and becomes reflexive with an experienced GM.

Whereas the design of a well crafted tale is concerned with the denouement, in a good game that is left to actual play.  The game designer's mission is merely to create the conditions for the crisis, the dynamics that propel affairs toward a climax.  

Perhaps a helpful analogy is the pitch for an open-ended TV series.  You've got no episodes yet, so the premise itself must suggest plenty of potential drama.  A sketch of the cast of main characters is an obvious source, as is a precis of the situation.

When we don't find drama in a typical wargame, what's missing is a sense of personal stakes.  We don't have a sense of individuals engaged in struggles about which they greatly care, so it is harder for us to care much.  What a role-playing game adds is that personal dimension of conflict.

There's not much mileage in characters who care only about themselves, or about abstract ideals.  They must be grounded in important personal relationships.  Cold-blooded mercenaries wandering through a world only of disposable objects do not deliver what we're after.  One way or another, we need to get them involved in being vulnerable.  (Fantasies geared to adolescent boys are often meant to do the opposite, providing an escape from the audience's real-life awareness of vulnerability.)

It is desirable to have multiple conflicts, since we will want to see them successively brought to decision; a spring left wound too long loses tension.  For an extended campaign, one would like the very resolution of a major conflict naturally to present the seeds of a new one, but often we find it necessary to add new ingredients to the mix to stir it up again.  

Continuous elements such as opposing factions can help give a campaign focus, as they do in many TV series.  However, a temptation to beware of as a GM is bias toward keeping a PC's nemesis in business when the foe's defeat is due.  

Both history and fiction provide ample resources of interesting characters and situations.  Having those on tap is a great asset for an RP gamer, especially a GM.  Remember that the most important things in drama are not props peculiar to genres, but aspects of human nature found in all times and places.

A commonsense assumption is that one will naturally be drawn to stories related to the kind of game one desires.  If the imagination is starved for material, perhaps a change in reading and viewing is in order.

Reduced to essential form, a conflict involves someone wanting something and finding an obstacle in the way of getting it, or facing a choice between or among things that are all desired.  A case of two people desiring the same thing (but unable to share it), or desiring mutually exclusive things, introduces inter-personal conflict.

Sometimes a viable solution is to re-evaluate priorities, finding that actually one is willing to pay more or less for something than initially believed. It may take some adventures to discover that (often a process of growing maturity).  Changing the situation by removing obstacles may require perseverance after initial failure.

Player engagement is likely to be greater the more the player can empathize with his or her character.  If the figure is shallow, villainous, comical, etc., there should be at least a "guilty pleasure" in the role, some angle from which it arouses affection rather than contempt.

Campaign continuity normally does not provide for replays of scenarios.  In other game forms, those allow fuller exploration of possibilities.  The original "dungeon game" format allows many things passed up in one expedition to come into play in later adventures, but a lot of RPG play presents more limited opportunities for things not to be 'wasted'.  It may be worthwhile to play some scenarios again outside of the campaign context, even to have some "one shot" games not plugged into a campaign at all.  

The latter is especially attractive for one that's very likely to kill off PCs!  A lot of interest in the campaign, which can sustain it even when events would not be so dramatic without the context, is ongoing character development.  

That aspect can get overwhelmed by frequent changes that are too radical.  It takes time to integrate things, time without the distraction of yet another major addition or alteration.  This is most often swept away by piling on 'bling' (experience levels, gadgets, etc.), but other transformations can also come too rapidly for adequate digestion.

The same holds generally for the trivialization of drama into melodrama, pathos into bathos, suspense into yawn-inducing predictability.  It should not be The End of the World as We Know It every week.  Good pacing has dynamic range in tempo and feeling as well as subject.  Variety lets players recharge their emotional batteries, and lets things stand out freshly rather than being more of the same.  At the same time, the shifts should not be routinely so jarring that players cannot get their bearings.

Quote from: CRKrueger;881638When I am attacking an orc, my declaration is not text, it is not dialogue, it is communication to the GM of my intent.  The GM's response is a description of what happened.

As I mentioned earlier, to estar, I think the GM's response has a narrative aspect.  It can indeed be a dry, technical narrative -- even one in game jargon divorced from the imagined world (e.g., "5 points to figure B") -- but the same techniques can be applied to it as used when telling a story.  As those techniques can contribute to a sense of drama, this is one thing that strikes me as having the potential to fit the rubric of "good (or not so good) narrative from rules of simulation."

Quote from: CRKrueger;881642If the player wants me to come up with adventures specifically set around chess and present them in an interesting way so that they can shine.  Not gonna happen.  GMs are not storytellers.  You explore the world, and I'm doing my job, you'll find interesting answers to your questions.

I think an especially good fit for Chess is espionage.  All the pieces are in plain view, but the opponent's mind is hidden.  

Player A might want to convey a message, but need first to draw the prospective handler's (but not his own side's) attention to that and set up a code.

Player B might have information that the other side is trying to get, and he does not wish to reveal.  They can try to rattle him so that he slips up and gives away clues.

With a bit of brainstorming, I expect one could come up with a nifty spy scenario around a Chess tournament.  Actually, I'll bet it's already been done more than once.

If the role-player is actually quite good at Chess, the GM might find ways to drop Chess problems (from books or newspaper columns) into the game.

More generically, the Chess table is a classic setting for various kinds of repartee.  Standing in the field is a rationale for knowing or being known by NPCs, acquiring rivals or admirers, etc.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;881727The hilarious thing is... that this is EXACTLY how a lot of gm-less "story now" games work. Believe it or not, it's a design technique. The only difference is that the rules, and not the GM, achieve this result.

The rules? Really? I know from experience (including using such methods back in the 1970s, as a lot of folks did) that it's possible to have a mechanical algorithm automate the production of mixes of some bare bones, but that's pretty limited compared with the knowledge -- not just 'data' but actual understanding -- in a human mind!

Quote from: Manzanaro;881749But my questions are, "What constitutes an interesting character to you?" and "How do you make use of this in generating a compelling narrative?"

As mentioned, for me personally, an interesting character is not one that is interesting in isolation so much as one who is interesting in terms of making me want to see how he interacts with other characters, as well as having strong internal motivations of one sort or another.

For me an interesting character is one that starts out at or near the bottom and works their way up. I usually play relatively fresh characters just out of the wizards tower or farm and roll from there. Usually I have a baser concept. Like my current 5e shield using warlock. My initial goals were to travel and better myself. Once I hooked up with Jans short lived halfling ranger and Kefra's elf druid my plans changed as we teamed up on a mission and the mission diverted my interests. Part of that was following the others leads as they keyed off things that interested them. Like Kefra wanting to find out what was going wrong in the swamp. Which I agree is curious and want to know too. This was not part of the mission and is under our own aegis.

There is an overall "plot" to the area. But as yet we arent sure of all the details. We have also skirted what were probably other events going on that we either discovered after the fact. Or had other things to worry about and so didnt sidetrack.

The compelling narrative develops from the three of us doing our own thing which happens to be adventuring together because someone needed help and no one else listened. How we connect with the local NPCs and what mysteries we uncover. Nothing is predetermined or certain. The halflings story came to an abrupt and ignominious end in the belly of a frog. And that was great fun for Jannet.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881681estar, I appreciate the offer but there's no need for that. I have seen well set up sandboxes and I would agree that they are the way to go if you want a compelling narrative to emerge in the course of gameplay.

I actually would not be surprised if the people most vehemently disagreeing with my basic premise were to find that they were largely on the same page as me when it came to actual GMing practices.

Unfortunately we are having a hard time getting to the 'good GMing practices' part of the discussion because a few people are triggering heavily on the very concept of 'narrative', apparently reading it as 'railroading' or 'the GM tells everybody a story'.

Scourge is an example of the how you can have a strong plot with strong characters using a RPG without resorting to literary terms or convention.

I am the publisher and author of the work so it entirely on you if you want to read it. I just don't go into the nuts and bolts of the characters and locales but give advice based on me running the adventure two dozen times. The very GM advice you just asked for above.

And I am offering it to you for free.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881813But than again, I am guessing that most experienced GMs have purposefully ended a session with a "cliffhanger" ending upon occasion? And that is sure as hell a piece of dramatic structure. So I can't say it is something I avoid 100%.

Nope. Most GMs I have known. and myself, have ended a session at whatever looks like a good pause point. Be that right after combat, making camp, or returning to town. As a player I'd find ending on a cliffhanger damn annoying. Not entertaining.

estar, I sent you that pm. Thanks!

Philip, your input in these last few posts is good reading and much more interesting than our earlier arguments. Appreciated.

Quote from: Omega;881852Nope. Most GMs I have known. and myself, have ended a session at whatever looks like a good pause point. Be that right after combat, making camp, or returning to town. As a player I'd find ending on a cliffhanger damn annoying. Not entertaining.

I can see that, and it's certainly not something I would want to overuse myself, though it does fit well in pulp and superhero genres.

And when I do use them I try not to be artificial about it. No GM mandated plane plunging towards the earth or last second capture by the villains. But perhaps something along the lines of a realization of impending danger that has actually been in the works behind the scenes.

Crime in 19th c. London (which I gather lessened later in the century) was I reckon enough of a worry that the City would be rather "the wilderness" (in OD&D terms) compared with the safety of a country estate.  I still don't think, though, that attacks on gentlemen not venturing into especially risky circumstances would realistically be the routine kind of thing I took to be implied by Manzanaro's reference to bandit attacks.  One should not expect every carriage ride to the club or a party to involve violence along the way!

Quote from: Phillip;881857Crime in 19th c. London (which I gather lessened later in the century) was I reckon enough of a worry that the City would be rather "the wilderness" (in OD&D terms) compared with the safety of a country estate.  I still don't think, though, that attacks on gentlemen not venturing into especially risky circumstances would realistically be the routine kind of thing I took to be implied by Manzanaro's reference to bandit attacks.  One should not expect every carriage ride to the club or a party to involve violence along the way!

Of course it wasn't every single ride, but the probability was there, from what I know:). As I haven't studiedthe period, I would have a hard time saying what said probability was, but we agree it was much higher than today.
And either way, that was the less important part,  you actually mentioned one of the factors that make it non-random or at least strongly weighted;).

Quote from: Manzanaro;881707"Narrative" does not mean what Ron Edwards thought it meant.

Honestly, I have no clue what Edwards thought it meant.  Considering how muddled his writings on the topic are, I often question whether he himself knows what he thinks it means.  When I referred to the definition of the word, I was talking about the actual dictionary definition:

narration: something narrated; an account, story, or narrative.

narrative: a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious.

(In both cases, those are the first definitions presented by dictionary.com.  Feel free to look them up for yourself if you like.)

Quote from: Manzanaro;881712CRK, do you feel that you and I MUST share the same views and perspective in this matter? This discussion is not intended as a personal attack on you, nor am I challenging your assertations at every turn.

Tldr: It is okay for us to disagree.

What more do you want from me?

Buh?

Why, yes, it is OK for us to disagree.  What more do we want?  For you to quit telling us that how we experience it is wrong and that everything is really, truly, objectively a narrative whether we experience it that way or not.  I've even said as much already (emphasis added):

Quote from: nDervish;881706The reason I react strongly to people saying "playing an RPG is narration/telling a story" is because I have told many stories (including collaboratively) and I have played many RPGs and, for me, they are two completely different kinds of experiences with almost nothing in common.  They are, for me, absolutely not the same thing.  Based on what they've said here, I'm pretty sure that estar and CRKruger also experience them as two completely distinct activities.

I can easily see how someone else might experience them as the same thing.  You seem to be saying that you experience them that way, and I'm perfectly happy to take you at your word.  I only ask that, in return, you extend me the same courtesy and stop insisting that RPGs are objectively the same as narration.

For example:

Quote from: Manzanaro;881813Time to say, "Okay, so the next morning..." and again that is something that is done based on narrative principles even if it goes unanalyzed and becomes reflexive with an experienced GM.

That's a clear case of the "I know you don't think you're using narrative principles, but you are.  You just don't realize that you're doing it." bullshit which sets me off and convinces me that "you (Manzanaro) feel that you and I MUST share the same views and perspective in this matter" and are not willing to agree to disagree.

(And, no, I'm not using narrative principles.  I move on because I'm getting bored and George has started playing Candy Crush on his phone and, although Rita is still paying attention, she hasn't actually participated for nearly half an hour.)

nDervish if you don't think an account of events emerges from playing an RPG I don't imagine I could convince you otherwise.

And in the long run, what does it matter whether we agree? I agree that you don't think RPGs create a narrative when we play them. That doesn't mean I have to pretend I think that they don't either just out of respect for your feelings. Just don't take it personally and move on is my best advice.

Guys, both of you:
What we're doing ends up with an account of events. That is undeniable, as well as the fact that this is called a narrative.

Said events might be told in a way that has narrative value or not.

We might care or not about the narrative value. If we don't, it's hard to say whether we're applying narrative principles  (if we regularly end up with something worth telling as a story, we are-or at least someone who can influence the game events is, but that could be a player, or the GM doing it unconsciously. Conversely, if that seldom happens, it's likely that you're not - and that you have no flair for the dramatic is likely as well).

There's no contradiction in the above. You're both right.

I don't have a problem with people using the words story or narrative to describe the events in a game session. Why it raises my defenses a bit, and why I think people react so strongly to it, is it is often use to build an argument that equivocates on the various meanings of those terms to argue that games should be designed or played to produce good stories (that mechanics or adventure structure ought to produce satisfying narratives).

Personally I think the word narrative is a bit overused these days and changes meaning slightly depending on who is using it (it has also become a politicized term).

I will say though when events occur in real life, they don't automatically produce narrative in my mind, that happens after the fact. That is why historians distinguish between the narrative (the retellings and structuring of a sequence of events) and analysis (which attempts to understand, explain and contextualize historical events). When someone says 'the story of my life' that is a metaphor, it isn't literally stating you believe your life to be a narrative. A gaming session doesn't have to produce a narrative, though it can.

I don't have anything against narrative mechanics or story driven adventures. But I do think this debate often is more about an attempt to give primacy of one plays style over another. If you like telling a story in your RPGs or you enjoy more narrative style mechanics, that seems a fair approach to play to me.