Quote from: AsenRG;881954Guys, 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.

Meaning: if we play out in a fully immersive manner, we can get something similar to a biography (meaning: life course). You still have constructed a narrative, even if you didn't care for narrative principles while creating it and never write it down, and only tell it to other participants in the session. It might be a brilliant narrative, or one that sucked, but it's likely that this won't matter.
And neither of these contradicts the fact that some other people might play just as immersively, but get an account of events that's more engaging to listen to afterwards - probably because the Referee and/or players were paying more attention to narrative principles when setting up the game.

Quote from: CRKrueger;883691Yeah, events *can* be used to create an account of events.  Steel can be used to make a Fork or a Machine Gun, that does not mean Steel is a Fork, Machinegun or any other form of Tool.  Steel is a material used to make tools.

Hence, Steel is a Potential Fork and a Potential Machine Gun. You can choose not to see it. Alfred Nobel chose not to see that Dynamite is a Potential Weapon. It was still used as one.

QuoteWhen roleplaying, you very specifically and objectively DO NOT end up with an account any more then Stephen King can end up with a book without actually writing one.  It must be created.  An accounting of events is a telling of events.

Please, stop the splitting, that hair is thin enough already and you don't need to cut it to single-molecular whips;).
If you ever record the course of an actual session, that's just people talking. It's an account of events to anyone that listens to it (albeit usually one in bad need of editing, see also: Youtube records of actual sessions).

QuoteIf you do not intend to create an accounting of events while playing and work towards that story creation, you most certainly DO NOT create an accounting of events.

So, your intention matters? Are you living in some shitty conflict resolution world:p?
Seriously, no. Your intention doesn't matter. If you break a glass in big shards, you've still created possible weapons, the likes of which have been used in bars, prisons and elsewhere - even if you then throw them away, and choose not to see that possible function. But it's still inherent in the material. You just chose to ignore it.

QuoteRoleplaying creates events.  A series of events, collection of events, group of events, list of events, pick your word that means "a bunch of" and you have it.  Without intent to do more, that's ALL you have. Period.

Obviously, I call bullshit.

QuoteNope.  There's millions of people who lived badass lives we'll never hear about because no one ever created a narrative about them.

QuoteA potential narrative is like saying "Every time I fly into New York, there's a potential I just might sleep with Olivia Wilde while I'm here."  Once you decide to tell the story of that crazy night that never happened, or maybe it did, then you create the narrative.

There is no Potential Narrative, it's not Potential Energy.

Actually, I'm using it specifically like Potential Energy. So there is a Potential Narrative, often more than one.

Quote from: Bren;883705My idea is a potential narrative is not a narrative in the same way that a potential bestseller that is never written down or published is not a best seller.

Except it is a narrative. But unless said potential gets used, you just won't have the chance to interact with it in any way, whether that's buying, reading, or reviewing it:D!

QuoteYou seem to be using "creates" in a non-standard way. Why are you doing that?

Because I was on a phone and didn't care to write any longer than strictly necessary;).

Also, and that was just an intent that didn't come to pass, because I wanted to get people to see that they're talking about mostly the same thing - but they're disagreeing almost violently with the terms the other side is using. So it would pay more to do that, if we were to get the thread back on track.

QuoteCertainly everyone has a past. Living your life creates a sequence of events that can be (but are not always) contemplated in hind sight or written down. But having a past doesn't automatically create a biography. Creating a biography is a separate act.

I'm using the third definition of "biography" according to the dictionary, meaning "the course of a life's events".
biography
bʌɪˈɒɡrəfi/
noun
an account of someone's life written by someone else.
synonyms:   life story, life history, life, memoir, profile, account; More
biographies considered as a literary genre.
"the basic difference of approach to autobiography and biography"
the course of a person's life.
"although their individual biographies are different, both are motivated by a similar ambition"

Biography in that sense doesn't need to be written. But it's the core of any biogrpaphy in the first meaning.

QuoteSimilarly playing an RPG creates a sequence of events that can be (but are not always) contemplated in hind sight or written down. If you write it down or tell it to someone it's a narrative. If you contemplate it, but don't tell it or write it down, it's arguably still a narrative (at least I think it is). But if you never write it, tell it, or contemplate it after the fact there is no narrative.

See above on "unwritten biography".
And you said it yourself, if I'm not mistaken: any sequence of events, including the orc being hit with a sword for 8 damage and dying, is a narrative.
Besides, in RPGs, by the nature of the beast, I am telling it someone - to the other players (including the Referee), at least. We're all audience to each other, necessarily so, if we want anything to happen in that session. We might not consider ourselves as audience - and indeed, it would probably be harmful to immersion (assuming our characters are present in the same scene - if they're not, we're nothing but audience).

QuoteOf course all of this is an ontological side issue to the question of what it is that Manzanaro actually wants more of in his RPG sessions. I'm still waiting for a clarification of what it is he does want.

Well, that's something obvious, to me: a session that's immersive, and entertaining to remember or write about later;). So, he wants to get a simulationist game with a dash of dramatist play, or maybe vice versa.
And yes, I'm using the older definition to avoid "narrative mechanics" being mentioned again;). Because that's definitely not one that Manzanarro wants, AFAICT.

Quote from: jhkim;883628Yeah, Anon. It seems like you're betraying your ignorance of RPG theory more than Manzanaro. Very few people except Ron Edwards has ever used the term "Right to Dream", while there are loads of people who have used "simulationist" - including even some published books and real academic papers.

Sadly, because of the confusion that Edwards introduced by his own inconsistent use of the term, it's best for people to clarify what they mean when they use it. Most people usually mean the original definition that Edwards reiterated in his original use in Sorcerer and "System Does Matter" - creating a little pocket universe without fudging, striving for accuracy, treating the game world as a reality of its own. Later, he flip-flopped around about what it meant - cowardice, exploration, dreaming, and/or celebration.

Likewise, with the term "narrative" -



Unfortunately, "narrative" gets mixed up with "narrativist", and even within the OP, I think it gets muddled, such as:

I do not tend to like games where narrative principles are too heavily encoded in the rules of the game.

vs.

But I DO want the events of the game to be compelling, dramatic, suspenseful, involving and all the other things that are hallmarks of a good story.

I think there is something to talk about here, but the term "narrative" is confusing to it.

Also, that's a post worth reminding of.
Especially since yes, Edwards mentions that his most "narrativist" play was when he got interesting PCs, interesting NPCs, and only needed to play the NPCs (Sorcerer Annotated Edition).

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;883584The only people who talk like this are the people who have been exposed to RPG theory but didn't bother to actually read any of it. Simulationist is a dead giveaway as that term is near exclusively a product of Forge theory with a very specific meaning, and 'Right to Dream' replaced it as the preferred term ages ago.

Not that it really matters to anything, but, for the record, I was describing RPGs as "simulated alternate realities" and similar terms long before I'd been exposed to any RPG theory, Edwardian or otherwise.  When I was first introduced to GNS, I was quite annoyed to see that he'd laid claim to one of my preferred words for describing what I like in RPGs.  This was only very slightly offset by finally understanding why, whenever I said "simulation", everyone on TBP thought I was talking about something completely different than what I meant by it.

Quote from: Manzanaro;883608There is no experiencing the character. The character is not real.

The character's non-reality is completely beside the point.  Yes, I experience the character in my imagination, but imaginary experiences are still experiences.

Quote from: Manzanaro;883608Surely you'd agree that a GM employs narrative techniques in presenting the gameworld to the players?

I would agree that the GM can employ narrative techniques in presenting the gameworld.  I do not, however, agree that the GM inevitably uses narrative techniques to do so, nor that all presentation of the gameworld is inherently based in narrative techniques.

Quote from: AsenRG;883686That's an interesting question. Is it a narrative if nobody tells it?
And my idea is that it is. Everyone's life has a potential narrative, even if it's never told.

I would say that, no, it is not.  A narrative is an account of events.  It is not the events themselves.  If the events are not recounted (even internally), then there is no account of them.

For example, I took the bus to work this morning, but, five minutes ago, there was no narrative of that bus trip.  The series of events had occurred, but never recounted.  (There is a narrative now, because I reflexively reviewed it in my mind when I chose to use it as an example of a sequence of events with no corresponding narrative.  But there was no accounting of those events prior to that review.)

Quote from: Manzanaro;883779Secondly, though he has determined to abide by the rules of simulation in every particular (to the extent that this is possible) it is still up to him to present those results to the players in narrative form: e.g. he is going to present them with an account of events based upon their actions, the outcomes determined by the rules of simulation, and the things that he has directly authored into the gameworld as the GM.

If I look out my window and tell you that I see a swingset with a girl in a pink jacket playing on one of the swings, do you consider that to be a narration?  I think it would be more common to call it a description of the scene.

Oh, and by the way, I don't actually see that out my window right now.  I imagined it, based on having seen her out the window on other days.  Does the fact that the described scene is fictional change my description into narration?  I would say it does not.  Description is description, not narration.

Quote from: Manzanaro;883779Is pacing something that should be considered in GMing a game of simulation? Or is that somehow tampering with the sim?

Attempting to control pacing, as I understand it, is something completely outside of the realm of simulation.  If it takes three days to go from A to B, then having someone from A "just happen" to arrive at B at the same time as the PCs, regardless of when they left A or when the PCs arrive at B, is clearly tampering with the sim.

Going back to my example of the troll attack on my PCs' town, "I determined that the trolls would attack on this date, and then the PCs happened to leave on that date" is sim; "the trolls will attack on the day that the PCs leave town" is not (unless the trolls are bright enough to watch for the PCs leaving and wait until then before attacking, but they weren't).

Quote from: Manzanaro;883779What are some good ways of communicating a sense of character in NPCs?

By giving the NPCs clear characterization (believable personality, goals, etc.) and playing them accordingly.

Quote from: Manzanaro;883779Is it possible to achieve narrative effects like consistent tone and atmosphere? if so what are some good ways to aim for this?

It seems to me that a consistently-simulated world would naturally have a consistent tone and atmosphere.

Quote from: Manzanaro;883779Since rules of simulation are inherently unconcerned with narrative considerations, can we salvage things that seem to result in a very unsatisfying narrative into something that the players feel does result in something satisfactory?

In the general case, yes, it is possible.  Whether it will work or not depends on your table and how you choose to view those events when framing the narrative.  Random character deaths in "unimportant" encounters seems to be the canonical example of "unsatisfying narrative" in RPGs, but a lot of good gaming stories focus on characters dying randomly in "unimportant" encounters, thus showing that they absolutely can be turned into satisfactory narratives.

All quotes from nDervish

QuoteThe character's non-reality is completely beside the point. Yes, I experience the character in my imagination, but imaginary experiences are still experiences.

If he had said he experienced his imagination of the character I would not have argued.

QuoteI would agree that the GM can employ narrative techniques in presenting the gameworld. I do not, however, agree that the GM inevitably uses narrative techniques to do so, nor that all presentation of the gameworld is inherently based in narrative techniques.

"Narrative techniques provide deeper meaning for the reader and help the reader use imagination to visualize situations." First definition Google gave me and pretty much exactly how I intended to be understood. Not sure how a GM could avoid using these.

QuoteIf I look out my window and tell you that I see a swingset with a girl in a pink jacket playing on one of the swings, do you consider that to be a narration? I think it would be more common to call it a description of the scene.

Oh, and by the way, I don't actually see that out my window right now. I imagined it, based on having seen her out the window on other days. Does the fact that the described scene is fictional change my description into narration? I would say it does not. Description is description, not narration.

Description is an element of narration. "a round red ball" is not narration "I see a round red ball" is.

QuoteAttempting to control pacing, as I understand it, is something completely outside of the realm of simulation. If it takes three days to go from A to B, then having someone from A "just happen" to arrive at B at the same time as the PCs, regardless of when they left A or when the PCs arrive at B, is clearly tampering with the sim.

Going back to my example of the troll attack on my PCs' town, "I determined that the trolls would attack on this date, and then the PCs happened to leave on that date" is sim; "the trolls will attack on the day that the PCs leave town" is not (unless the trolls are bright enough to watch for the PCs leaving and wait until then before attacking, but they weren't).

This is not at all what I mean by pacing. Pacing is not the events that take place, it's a quality of how you depict them. No time to get into this deeper right now.

QuoteIt seems to me that a consistently-simulated world would naturally have a consistent tone and atmosphere.

Do you mean the whole world would have the same tone and atmosphere at all times?

QuoteIn the general case, yes, it is possible. Whether it will work or not depends on your table and how you choose to view those events when framing the narrative. Random character deaths in "unimportant" encounters seems to be the canonical example of "unsatisfying narrative" in RPGs, but a lot of good gaming stories focus on characters dying randomly in "unimportant" encounters, thus showing that they absolutely can be turned into satisfactory narratives.

I don't mean the post hoc narrative, which seems to be what you are talking about?

What I am getting at is: imagine you had played out an RPG that followed the events of Star Wars to a T (assuming the movie did not even exist) but then it ended with everyone dying as you tried to elude pursuit in an asteroid field. The question is would you find this to be a satisfying resolution to the events of play as you experienced it.

Quote from: nDervish;883787Not that it really matters to anything, but, for the record, I was describing RPGs as "simulated alternate realities" and similar terms long before I'd been exposed to any RPG theory, Edwardian or otherwise.

BTW, so was I.

QuoteI would say that, no, it is not. A narrative is an account of events. It is not the events themselves. If the events are not recounted (even internally), then there is no account of them.

For example, I took the bus to work this morning, but, five minutes ago, there was no narrative of that bus trip. The series of events had occurred, but never recounted. (There is a narrative now, because I reflexively reviewed it in my mind when I chose to use it as an example of a sequence of events with no corresponding narrative. But there was no accounting of those events prior to that review.)

See my point to CRK. As long as we are talking to get the PCs to do something, a recording of this is a narrative, even if we constructed it unwittingly and without following narrative logic, but restricted ourselves to in-game logic.

Quote from: Manzanaro;883788"Narrative techniques provide deeper meaning for the reader and help the reader use imagination to visualize situations." First definition Google gave me and pretty much exactly how I intended to be understood. Not sure how a GM could avoid using these.

Description is an element of narration. "a round red ball" is not narration "I see a round red ball" is.

You are missing the point.

For example Melee as originally packaged by Metagame was a wargame. Two players made warriors and have had it to determine a victor. The Fantasy Trip use used the rules of Melee as it's combat system however focus was not on two players trying to win but to run a RPG campaign full of adventure.


The same with the use of verbal narration in a RPG campaign. We are sitting around a campfire telling stories. The storytellers use tricks and techniques to come up with the right choice of worlds to paint a vivid picture in everybody's mind who is listening. The focus here is to tell a story.

Those same tricks and techniques can be used by me while refereeing a tabletop RPG Campaign to paint a vivid picture of where the characters are or who they are talking too. However the focus is completely different. Here it is to further a tabletop RPG campaign and lives of the characters are in it.

Tabletop RPGs are a new unique thing in the world of entertainment. Storytelling, writing, theater, and film/tv are passive experiences. You watch, read, or listen to the story unfolding. Theater builds on Storytelling and Writing but is something of it own thing. Film/TV builds on Theater but it also it own thing. Tabletop RPGs combine elements of all these with a wargame and it is own thing.

That is that thing? It not to tell stories, stories are passive and fixed once performed or committed to paper. RPG Campaigns are dynamic and active. RPG Campaigns achieve this by simulating the life of the characters in an imagined setting doing something interesting.

We can use narrative techniques in specific situations of campaign, just like we can use wargame tactics in specific situation of a campaign. But overall the way it works is for the player imagine himself as the character and acting as if he is really there in the setting.

Players needs to be focused on what he would do as the character at that moment. Not what is best for some story running through his head. He could do that, as you seem to do, however the result would be a person trying to do that in real life. Which to say it it wouldn't be a good result or a satisfying result.

Why? Because real life is not a story playing out. To be successful your actions have to account for your circumstances. In the imagined life of a RPG campaign the same rule applies. The players who succeed in the goals for their characters are those who account for the circumstance in which their characters find themselves in.

Estar, have I anywhere said "Roleplaying games are stories"? Haven't I said that the word "story" absolutely does not apply?

Most of your posts I have actually agreed with and expressed many of the same sentiments in different words.

And yet you act as though I am saying things I haven't said and that I am missing the point, while attributing views to me that I have neither expressed nor hold.

I don't understand it.

Asen, your entire post comes down to..

You see it as narrative, therefore it is narrative, no matter the actual definitions of the term and more importantly, despite people telling you

• they definitely know when they are creating a narrative
• they definitely know when they are experiencing a narrative
• when they Roleplay, they are not doing or experiencing anything having to do with a narrative

You've gone beyond the arrogance of telling someone they don't like what they like, you've moved on to telling them they don't think the way they think.

I know you create Narrative when you roleplay, it's obvious from your posts and the games you play.

Unfortunately, there's a tendency of people who like roleplaying+narrative to deny that anyone else does something different.  Arrogance, Ideology, Youth, I don't know what the hell it is.  You have it, John Kim doesn't.  John Kim, and others, are worth talking to about this subject because we understand and can respect each other's positions even if we disagree on certain things.

You no longer are, because you don't respect or even accept the existence of any position other than your own, on this particular topic.

I know when I'm actively creating a story when I GM.  I did it when I ran To Race the Thunder.
My normal GMing style does not do this.  It's a different thought process.

I know when I'm actively creating a story when I play.  I did it when I played SotC at a FLGS with a friend last year.
My normal playing style does not do this.  It's a different thought process.

Quote from: CRKrueger;883823Asen, your entire post comes down to..

You see it as narrative, therefore it is narrative, no matter the actual definitions of the term and despite people telling you

• they definitely know when they are creating a narrative
• they definitely know when they are experiencing a narrative
• when they Roleplay, they are not doing or experiencing something having to do with a narrative

You've gone beyond the arrogance of telling someone they don't like what they like, you've moved on to telling them they don't think the way they think.

I know you create Narrative when you roleplay, it's obvious from your posts and the games you play.

Unfortunately, there's a tendency of people who like roleplaying+narrative to deny that anyone else does something different.  Arrogance, Ideology, Youth, I don't know what the hell it is.  You have it, John Kim doesn't.  John Kim, and others, are worth talking to about this subject.  

You no longer are.

Or you are talking about different things. The fact that you capitalize the N when you say that Asen creates Narrative leads me to think that this is the case and that indeed you see this whole subject as some kind of foundational ideological dispute. Whereas I think it is much more simple: I think it is just a matter of one person recognizing statements like "You come into the room and see an angry family of beavers" and "I swing my sword at the Storygamer" as narration (as they understand the term) while another person doesn't. Unless nothing happened in your game, that game had an emergent narrative. If you disagree all that means is that you are using the word differently and refusing to accept that this is even a possibility. For reasons I am sure.

Quote from: Manzanaro;8837794. The Simulationist Approach (in Practice)


First of all, it is impossible to simulate an entire world or even a village.

This is a red herring. The PCs cannot interact with the entire world or the entire village all at the same time. So simulating everything at once isn't necessary. Of course we all know that any simulation is a simplification. That's part of the definition of simulation. Only reality has the detail of reality.

QuoteBut he is still authoring things.

In the world of actual authoring, authors don't randomly roll to determine events in their stories or to create the personalities of their characters. David could. He may not want to because he may prefer making up stuff, he may prefer to follow the tropes of some genre, he may worry about things like Chekov's Gun, he may not be invested in simulating an imaginary world or following its rules. But those are choices David made about how to GM. Choices to be an author rather than to determine things in some other, less authorial, less literary manner.

QuoteHe must narrate to the PCs the things that they perceive.

And again you are equivocating on the word narration. I can't tell if you don't realize you are doing it or if you think we don't realize that you are doing it.

QuoteHe must make decisions about things to skip over and things to focus on.

Alternatively the players, through the choices of their PCs, could decide what to focus on. There is no requirement for the GM to choose for them what to focus on. That is a choice [strike]David[/strike] you made. It is not a requirement.

QuoteWhat are some narrative techniques that can be effective within the context of a game that truly is arbitrated by rules of simulation to the highest degree possible?

What do you mean by effective?

Personally I want the GM to be clear and consistent. But that has nothing to do with wanting that "a sense of drama, mystery, emotional investment, or any other desired narrative quality be heightened" it has everything to do with wanting to understand the situation from the point of view of my PC. Clear, unambiguous language is an effective way to do that. Adding in drawings or pictures, maps, models, is another way to clearly and unambiguously communicate the situation.

QuoteIs pacing something that should be considered in GMing a game of simulation? Or is that somehow tampering with the sim?

In a simulation, I'd let the players determine the pacing and focus. The GM might facilitate this by methodically advancing time and checking to see what the PCs are doing and if the PCs wanted to attempt something during the period of time that is advanced. If I want to emulate a story, a comic, or movie instead of an imaginary world, then I would use the language and and literary techniques used in telling stories aloud and I might try to evoke scenes that appear in films or comics.

QuoteWhat are some good ways of communicating a sense of character in NPCs?

Acting helps. Typically, hammy acting is better than nuanced and subtle acting. Most of use are not professional actors much less  talented professional actors so setting the acting bar low is a good idea. Speech mannerisms, voice tone, vocabulary, tics, quirks, little elements of body language, tag lines are all ways to communicate differences in NPCs.  A  stock, stereotyped, or two dimensional personality is easier to portray and easier for the players to grasp and remember than some subtle nuanced performance. Playing an RPG is not like watching a movie. The player may be looking at her character sheet, planning his next action, or reviewing her notes and may miss the subtle, but crucial element of a nuanced portrayal.

QuoteSince rules of simulation are inherently unconcerned with narrative considerations, can we salvage things that seem to result in a very unsatisfying narrative into something that the players feel does result in something satisfactory?

I don't find that rules of simulation result in an unsatisfying play experience. It would help if you explained what it is that you are finding unsatisfactory with the play experience you are having now. I've asked this several times now and you still haven't clarified.

QuoteLet me give an example of that last bit:

a. If Star Wars had been governed by sim rules rather than narrative rules, you know when Han Solo steers into an asteroid field and C3P0 tells him they have a 99% chance of being killed? Well... The Millenium Falcon very likely would have been hit by an asteroid killing all the PCs on board. Is there a way to make this satisfying as a narrative?

C3P0 is a protocol droid. He knows damn all about the odds are for flying through an asteroid. The script writer put that in as a script technique to explain to the slow folks in the audience that flying through the asteroid field was dangerous and to give Han a chance to say "Don't tell me the odds!"

If we are playing a simulation game where the odds really are 99-1 against success, Han should come up with a better plan or Han's player should expect to get smoked. If we are playing a game that emulates the tone and style of a Star Wars movie then we know that the odds of success for the hero are far, far better than 1%.

QuoteSo, that is about as good a summary as I can provide of my perspective and what the kind of things I thought could be interesting to discuss. For the record, I am not looking for a particular thing that is missing from my games (sorry Bren) but thought it would be genuinely interesting to see people's individual takes and techniques relating to some of these issues.

If you are perfectly satisfied with the outcome of playing a simulation, than this whole thread is just idle and pointless chatter equivalent to someone (who has no ability to effect the team) talking about their favorite sports team in a bar. OK.

I hope Royals do really well this year. I'd like to not wait another 30 years for their next World Series victory.

Quote from: Manzanaro;883827If you disagree all that means is that you are using the word differently and refusing to accept that this is even a possibility. For reasons I am sure.

No, I disagree because...

• I have GM'd games with the intent to create narrative and have created it.
• I have GM'd games without the intent to create narrative and have not created it.
• I have played games with the intent to create narrative and have created it.
• I have played games without the intent to create narrative and have not created it.

Doing all of those 4 things, I know what went on my mind at the time, and how I experienced them enough to know that there is a difference.  Oddly enough, the fact that this difference I know to be true somehow matches perfectly the English definitions of the term leads me to believe the definition is correct and that I am not insane.  Your experiences obviously lead you to different decisions, which means...

• You haven't experienced the difference.
• Myself and everyone else in this thread who are telling you the exact same thing are all insane or deluding ourselves.

Occam's razor is one sharp fucker, isn't it?

Bren, got to say that I am still scratching my head at your participation in a thread which you find pointless beyond the fact that it somehow provokes you into writing long posts that seem to primarily function as thinly veiled protests that the thread even exists.

Krueger, 3 or 4 people expressing disagreement with my perspective isn't enough to make me bow my head in a realization of my own stupidity, sorry. Especially when that small handful's entire line of disagreement seems rooted in simple semantic differences and notions of competing ideology which I find absurd.

Seriously? If it wasn't ideological for you, I would think that the response to this thread would simply be: "Oh here is someone interested in narrative techniques that are useful in RPGs. Guess I will not post in that thread since I am not interested in these things," as opposed to " That's not how it works! Stop telling me I am crazy and deluded!"

Me, the person with a preference that swings about as far toward "Zero Narrative, Zero Metagame" as you can get, is gonna back the 2d20 Conan KS to play, not just to mine.

However, I'm not replacing my normal roleplaying sessions with it because it doesn't deliver that experience.

It doesn't deliver a "roleplaying" experience.
It delivers a "roleplaying+storytelling" experience, which is the entire point of the system.

I also can enjoy it, because no one over there is telling me the mechanics aren't there to create stories, even though they designed them to do just that, they embrace it.

I find narrative game designers know exactly what I'm talking about, and that roleplaying games particularly suck at trying to create stories, and in fact, don't just create them on their own, because that's why they specifically decided to create games that include mechanics to allow and support it.

I don't know where the hell their players get this from.

Quote from: Manzanaro;883836simple semantic differences and notions of competing ideology which I find absurd.

Absurd.

Yep.

Quote from: Manzanaro;883836" That's not how it works! Stop telling me I am crazy and deluded!"

People are telling you that's not how it works, because that's not how it works, using simple English.  You refuse to use anything but your own definitions, which vary from post to post and have only one thing in common...

What Manzanaro says is the Truth, anyone who disagrees with his definitions don't know that they are using the wrong definitions and they actually support him, they just don't know it.

Why the reaction?  Well, I'll quote Al Pacino (Detective) speaking to Robin Williams (Murderer) in Insomnia.

Quote from: Al PacinoYou're about as mysterious to me as a blocked toilet is to a fucking plumber.

Meaning, we get people like Manzanaro, like AsenRG, all the time here.  Usually one to three a year, who come in talking about roleplaying creating narratives, about how yes, roleplaying does create narratives, what other possibility is there, why the hostility, why don't you take everything I say at face value, why do you insist on using actual definitions of terms, don't you see, why can't you see...

etc, Ad Infinitum, Ad Nauseum.

You're nothing special, you're "Oh christ, here we fucking go again." or as Mr. Driveby Ironic Comment likes to say...

"Le Sigh "

Quote from: AsenRG;883783Actually, I'm using it specifically like Potential Energy. So there is a Potential Narrative, often more than one.

We're not going to agree. A potential narrative has no existence. It isn't a narrative. It isn't anything more than a wish or a prayer.

QuoteAlso, and that was just an intent that didn't come to pass, because I wanted to get people to see that they're talking about mostly the same thing

We aren't though.

Quotethe course of a person's life.
"although their individual biographies are different, both are motivated by a similar ambition"

For that sentence to make any sense at all, the two biographies must be comparable. For them to be comparable they must be known in some way to a third person. And since you only live your life, the biographies must be retold to others. Without both biographies being known by being told, there is no way to compare the two and conclude they are different.

QuoteBiography in that sense doesn't need to be written.

It has to be communicated in some fashion. We don't have a priori knowledge of other people's life histories.

QuoteSee above on "unwritten biography".

A biography must be communicated to be known. Whether the communication is written or in some other form is irrelevant. There may be an uncommunicated autobiography, but there is no uncommunicated biography.

QuoteWell, that's something obvious, to me...

I suspect he and I are not looking for the same experience in play and I'd rather not guess what experience he wants over and above playing a character in an imaginary world or running the imaginary world for other people to play in.

Quote from: nDervish;883787I would say that, no, it is not.  A narrative is an account of events.  It is not the events themselves.  If the events are not recounted (even internally), then there is no account of them.

For example, I took the bus to work this morning, but, five minutes ago, there was no narrative of that bus trip.  The series of events had occurred, but never recounted.  (There is a narrative now, because I reflexively reviewed it in my mind when I chose to use it as an example of a sequence of events with no corresponding narrative.  But there was no accounting of those events prior to that review.)

Yes. This exactly. Also everything else you said in that post.

Quote from: Manzanaro;883788"Narrative techniques provide deeper meaning for the reader and help the reader use imagination to visualize situations."

First definition Google gave me and pretty much exactly how I intended to be understood. Not sure how a GM could avoid using these.

By not caring about providing a meaning to the players. The GM can clearly describe the events and allow the players to find their own meaning (if any) in those events.

QuoteWhat I am getting at is: imagine you had played out an RPG that followed the events of Star Wars to a T (assuming the movie did not even exist) but then it ended with everyone dying as you tried to elude pursuit in an asteroid field. The question is would you find this to be a satisfying resolution to the events of play as you experienced it.

Rash PCs dying because they tried to do something that had almost no chance of success makes a great story of how the world works and how hubris inevitably leads to tragedy.

If 'they all died in the asteroid field' is not a story you want to get then PCs shouldn't try crazy, risky stunts and expect to live. At the point at which you want the PCs to succeed, despite the odds, to get a better ending to the story you've long since left behind any notion of simulation. If the odds really are 99-1 against, then the PCs are going to die. (If not this one time, then the next time, or the next.) That's fine if that's how your table rolls.

And if it is not how your table rolls, then there are games that let you play that way. Games where the odds really aren't 99-1 though the people in universe may say or think that the odds are that bad. Force Points in WEG's Star Wars game facilitates this kind of outcome. And the rules are written and intended to get stories like the movies. But insisting you still want a simulation of reality where the odds are 99-1, when you clearly want a happy ending despite the odds is a waste of everyone's time.