Quote from: CRKrueger;884153An event that occurs is not the same thing as an account of that event.
It never has been, in any language.
It never will be, in any language.
Period.

In any event, Manzanaro has made clear enough with the "Star Wars" example what he really means by "satisfying narrative." It's all Story Time, and the answer to how to do it with "simulation" rules is well known -- and deprecated both by Forgistas and by Trad RPers: IGNORE THE RULES. Just "fudge" the outcome into whatever you've decided is satisfactory.

Alternately, drop the "simulationist" pose and go with an honest "narrativist" rules set.

Anyway, it's like arguing over the term "gun" as a distraction from the fact that the proponent is trying to equate heavy artillery with ordinary sidearms.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;884190I think you could do it as a kind of simulation if you stipulated that this was occurring in cosmology where the supreme governing reality operated on storytelling principles. A bit of a cheat though and you'd have to design the entire universe around the idea. It would be a little like The luck of Teela Brown in a way I suppose.

Maybe more like Zaphod Bebblebrox, when he was in a universe designed for him. Teela was just very lucky, which I think left some chance of the worst outcome (which in some really big events could be close enough to certain death).

Overemphasis on Combat
Who is doing the emphasizing?  

If you follow the guidelines of...
1. Interesting setting - The characters have lots to do, lots to choose from.
2. Interesting NPCs - Whatever they decide to do, there are people who they can interact with that seem actual personalities, not stereotypes or cliches.
3. Interesting Enemies - Gangsters, cultists, corporations, nobles, people who have their own agendas, own resources and probably will conflict with the PCs at some point.
4. Pull no punches - They play their PCs, you play the world. Play it straight and play it hard.

Then the characters will choose when to fight or flee, sneak or charge, attack a weak target or a hard target.  If they fail, they will die.

Quote from: Little Bill DaggettThat's why there's so few dangerous men around, like Bob...like me.

Long Arguments Between Characters
I vastly prefer to keep everything in character.  Usually if it really is still in character, then other characters will probably be involved as well, even to tell the others to shut the hell up.  If I can see some characters aren't going to stand up, even if it looks like the player is frustrated, I might have an NPC step in between.  If it looks like it's gone to player, I just stop that shit immediately.  I tell them we're here to roleplay, if they can't keep in character, walk away, and the rest of us will play, or we'll break out the GoT card game and you can Stark-Lanister yourselves all night.  That usually gets us moving again.  

Or, I'll admit on occasion I have used a dirty trick - Ninja's Attack!  If the characters are in a place where some foe could conceivably have found them or gotten to them...it does.  This accomplishes two things.
1. It pulls everyone back into character, common foe, etc...
2. It sets a precedent for the other players, that if we don't handle this in game, Chris will, and we don't want that.

Quote from: nDervish;884337I'm not sure I see the distinction you're trying to draw here.  If I say, "let's skip ahead three days", the game world doesn't spend those three days in stasis.  I already know before the game session starts (i.e., I have simulated it in advance) what likely-significant events will take place on those three days or, if for some reason I haven't already worked that out (or if the PCs have done something which will affect those events), then I'll do a quick estimate (basic simulation) of what was likely to happen during that time.  Even when I "skip ahead", I still "model everything that happens, just faster".

Can you give me an example of what you mean when you say you simulate things in advance? I am trying to think how I coul clarify the distinction better...

Let's say the PCs are in town on some 'down time' between excursions. I might skip to a scene in which a PCs uncle or friend stops in for a visit, maybe passes on some rumours, or just has a bit of character interaction.

The thing is, when I decide that this will be the next scene we focus on, this isn't something I came up with via procedural generation (like an encounter table) or some other process of simulation. It's something I decided to do and so I stated that it happened: I narrated it.

And I didn't decide to do it out of some drive to advance a particular plot or anything, but it is still a scene which I have reasons for making the next scene: I know going in that I want to use the NPC to introduce rumours and town events in an organic feeling way, and at the same time, I want to see the relationship that emerges between the characters. Once I feel those things are accomplished we cut to the next thing ( which may not come directly from me, as we talked about before).

Quote from: Manzanaro;884205It's kind of like asking somebody if they want to play a superhero game with them playing as Batman, and then they go to stop a random mugging and I make a few rolls as the GM and say, "Whoops! You just got shot in the head by some random stooge that I didn't bother to name and you're dead." Which isn't going to leave them feeling much like Batman...

But playing in the risk aversive way that simulation tends to reward isn't going to be very Batman like either.

If you actually wanted a simulation, then you would simulate either a 0% chance that "a random stooge whose name he doesn't know" will take a shot at Batman, or a 0% chance that such a shot will hit him in the head, or a 0% chance that a shot to the head would kill him. That would simply be the rule, not "Does the GM's whim suggest this is 'dramatically satisfying'."

Batman would then not require the keenly honed combat acumen for which the character happens in fact to be famous in order to avoid the event. He could just walk right up to Nameless Guy With a .44 Magnum and say, "Feel lucky, punk?" -- because he'd know there was really no luck involved.

Hey Nihilistic Mind, thanks for the kind words and the input!

I am largely on the same page as you, though I will admit that I sometimes like having players fully define their gear for wilderness expeditions and the like. But if that is the case I am going to make sure those choices matter and not just gloss over the situations where it could make a difference.

As a player I have come to not be big on gearing up simply because with a lot of GMs that stuff never even matters.

But yeah, I can't deny that shopping expeditions are terrible for pacing (usually) and generating gear lists for long expeditions is probably best done between sessions in many cases.

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;884346I wanted to separate this paragraph and address it in particular. I don't think I've run any character through that many battles without a death or some serious maiming/crippling. The way that some GMs deal with this risk of killing PCs is simple: they cheat. They fake their rolls.
It drives me absolutely nuts. I would rather have my beloved character die horribly rather than have the GM protect it (happened last Friday, I rolled poorly, and it just so happened that the NPC rolled one less than me). That's just me though. Apparently breaking the simulation and keeping the illusion of appearances is a time-honored practice among many GMs.

I wanted to specifically address this, because fuck yes, I totally agree. I never fudge dice or established facts (even if the only place they have been established is in my mind as the GM). I think this is core to what I consider simulationist gaming. The dice don't lie and the game world needs to be treated as a solid place. A simulation without integrity isn't a simulation at all to my mind.

Quote from: Manzanaro;884205I do think that you can play high fantasy games or pulp games or whatever without any rules aimed at emulation of genre (other than the trappings) and what you end up with is essentially a DECONSTRUCTION of genre (i.e. instead of Tolkien you get Fantasy Fucking Viet Nam).

Tolkien's milieu was Fantasy Fucking World War One, a hell of a lot worse!

Beren and Luthien didn't just walk in to Morgoth's lair and say, "Give us the Silmaril, motherfucker, because we have Plot Protection." Boromir knew pretty well that unless Aragorn arrived in time in answer to his horn blasts -- which he did not -- that fight might be his last.

Tolkien's heroes time after time take precautions, and the reckless do not expect to be invulnerable; they are willing to accept the risk of death in the pursuit of glory. This was pretty much the norm in heroic literature until very recently; someone who faced no risk, simply taking success as an entitlement, was typically not regarded as heroic.

CRKrueger, I appreciate the less confrontational nature of your recent input and you make some good points.

Quote from: CRKrueger;884351If you are intending to actually create your narrative actively at the table, then pacing is definitely one of the most important tools you have.  

However, if you're simply experiencing a World In Motion through roleplay then who knows what will be satisfying or not some point down the road when you do actively create the narrative of those events?  Play out the travels on the road from Kordava to Messantia, ten years later you might still be telling stories about it.  

Pacing at this point becomes more of a way to "remove obstacles that shouldn't be there".

Here though... I'm all for playing out travels and I will generally include some impromptu description even at points where not a lot else is going on, just to try and capture the experience of travel and a sense of landscape.

But I still employ time skips. I don't describe every bend in the road on a moment by moment basis. So what is your approach? I have seen everyhing from "okay you travel for three weeks and are now there" to rolling daily encounters and skipping to them, to things like camping routines getting examined on a daily basis.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881461I don't want to know for a fact that the main characters are not actually in danger because they are narratively protected by the rules of the game. I don't want a final outcome that is never in doubt. I don't want to be railroaded along some predetermined plot trajectory. I don't want the villain to always escape because that is how it works in the source material.

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. And strict rules of simulation do not 'care' about any of these characteristics.

QuoteUnder rules of simulation, Batman and Tarzan die pretty early on and the Fellowship of the Ring is lost under a tide of orcs.

Huh? The only way to guarantee that is with a really rotten, unfaithful simulation of the characters. A decent simulation of Batman or Tarzan is more likely to die of old age than bullet wounds. However, there is an outside chance that a shot will fell the figure (and players who act more stupidly than their character prototypes can raise that a lot).

The only way to guarantee that it does NOT happen is to make it impossible for the enemies to kill the PCs, even regardless of what suicidal tactics the players may choose.

So, what you want is an Impossible Thing Before Breakfast. You want your character's demise to be dictated by the GM's whim, but also for the GM's whim to correspond exactly to your own sense of what's "satisfying" (yet at the same time to be unpredictable).

Philip, if you can stop fucking haranguing me and just have a normal discussion I think we would get along better.

Let's break down the Batman thing and how it relates to what I refer to as simulation.

Simulation is about modeling the way things work by the internal rules of the setting.

What I mean by that is that in setting there is nothing keeping Batman from being shot in the head. He is not magic. He is not faster than bullets.

So why has he never been shot in the head? Because of the narrative rules that govern Batman stories. He has plot protection. This is something that is META to the setting; in other words no character in the DC universe is going to REALIZE Batman has narrative immunity to being shot in the head as this would be what we call breaking the fourth wall. But most readers realize that Batman is not in mortal danger when he jumps some of Two Faces armed goons.

But raw simulation is not governed by narrative rules like characters having plot protection. In a simulation of any level of realism, Batman can get killed by guns.

This is why I am making the distinction that I have made throughout this thread. I am not asking how to get a good narrative out of rules of genre emulation (which is pretty clearly associated with actual narrative rules and/or mechanics), but simulation.

As a side note? You are still so fully misunderstanding my intent that I despair of being able to communicate with you. I don't want characters who can't die, nor have I ever said I do. I don't fudge rolls or outcomes, nor have I ever implied that this would be desirable. You are manufacturing positions for me with NO semblance to anything I have actually said. If not intentionally than you are just not good at jumping to conclusions and might consider abandoning the practice.

RPGs are not literature! Neither are they movies, comics, tv programmes or computer games!

RPGs are a media unto themselves and traditionally are poor (and shouldn't in my opinion) at emulating other forms of media. However, emulation of genre is certainly possible, especially if your end goal is immersion.

Thus spake RPGPundit's landmarks of game design (TM).

Quote from: Manzanaro;884294See? When we stop dwelling on the semantics it actually turns out that there is a pretty broad patch of common ground.

I tell people that fairly often as they keep forgetting it.

On the subject of pacing. Yep, varies alot too.

Some general rules of thumb that kinda work in allmost most cases is.
a: dont change pacing in the middle of an adventure. EG: youve been doing square by square exploration and then all of a sudden shift to point to point.
b: ask the players if its ok. Often players are ok with skipping ahead a few days during wilderness travel. Or skipping ahead till something happens. This is also where changing pacing is usually acceptible such as when moving from a safe region to a not safe one.
c: In general let the players decide how they want to deal with NPCs. Some just want to walk in, buy stuff, and be on their way wham bam zoom. Others like to chat up the NPCs for carious reasons. And others just want to dice off the NPCs since they suck at conversation but their character doesnt.

The frequency of the players wanting to focus pacing tends to correlate to the DMs ability and willingness to describe the things going on. Doesnt allways work of course as there are some types of players who cant stand descriptive play.

As a DM I never skip combats as that is a personal taboo, robbing the players of any say. And in 5e those kobolds are still a threat. aheh. In towns I let the pace flow as it may depending on whats going on with the groups interests.

Other DMs use totally different methods. As usual. What works at one table fails at another.

@manzanaro

again, I need to catch up with the whole thread, so apologies if this is a retread...

What I think phillip might be getting at is that the things you've sort of alluded as being part of a good story (early in the thread) are directly negated by the death of a protagonist. That is, unless you're taking a longer view of story than can be afforded when you're only playing one protagonist.

The only instance that I'm aware of in media of a good story where the protagonist dies early on is Psycho from Hitchcock. And that essentially changed the story from being about the heroine to being about the villain.

So, in my view, the only way to allow for the possibility of death yet maintain a "good" story would be to take a more meta view of the story where if your PC dies, you have another one ready in the wings to take over. I don't really see any other solution that would not involve taking out death as a possibility, at least in the early going.

Quote from: Manzanaro;884356Can you give me an example of what you mean when you say you simulate things in advance? I am trying to think how I coul clarify the distinction better...

Let's say the PCs are in town on some 'down time' between excursions. I might skip to a scene in which a PCs uncle or friend stops in for a visit, maybe passes on some rumours, or just has a bit of character interaction.

The thing is, when I decide that this will be the next scene we focus on, this isn't something I came up with via procedural generation (like an encounter table) or some other process of simulation. It's something I decided to do and so I stated that it happened: I narrated it.

1: This one is a toughy as depending on the edition or RPG, NPCs are one of the few things totally in the hands of the DM and not governed by any rules. Partially because to get world in motion an NPC needs to be able to do their thing irrespective of the PCs. Partially because plotting out whole towns can be a study in futility depending on the group, and about pointless micromanagement for the DM, who usually has alot to deal with as is.

2: That is a good example of world in motion if a player had established before the PC had an uncle. Whereas I might plot out when he would arrive so that the PCs might encounter him on the way or out looking for that having missed them by an hour for example. By chance they might totally miss him all day.

3: as noted. NPCs are one of the few things in RPGs a DM pretty much has to narrate. And I prefer it that way. Sure, some personality tools are usefull for those days you draw a blank. But overall this is where the DM has free reign without overall constraints of rules.

Quote from: Manzanaro;884364What I mean by that is that in setting there is nothing keeping Batman from being shot in the head. He is not magic. He is not faster than bullets.

So why has he never been shot in the head? Because of the narrative rules that govern Batman stories.

As a character in a comic, he either has not or (more probably) has been, because that's what the writer decides!. The question is, do you want a story-telling exercise, or do you want a role-playing game?

QuoteHe has plot protection.

No, what he has is total inability to do anything except be a puppet for the authors. Whatever the artist draws (possibly modified by a writer's text) is what happens. That's all there is to it.

QuoteThis is something that is META to the setting; in other words no character in the DC universe is going to REALIZE Batman has narrative immunity to being shot in the head as this would be what we call breaking the fourth wall. But most readers realize that Batman is not in mortal danger when he jumps some of Two Faces armed goons.

No, it's not breaking a 4th wall unless you know of a 4th wall. Otherwise, not expecting him to get killed in situations that already have repeatedly failed to kill him is just common sense.

QuoteBut raw simulation is not governed by narrative rules like characters having plot protection. In a simulation of any level of realism, Batman can get killed by guns.

As I have repeatedly pointed out. So stop spinning around denying what you keep demanding.

QuoteThis is why I am making the distinction that I have made throughout this thread. I am not asking how to get a good narrative out of rules of genre emulation (which is pretty clearly associated with actual narrative rules and/or mechanics), but simulation.

Which -- by your arbitrary definition -- is impossible because it violates the rules! Your proposed challenge is a rigged shell game without even shells, never mind a pea. How would you make "a satisfying narrative" out of your Star Wars death scene? The dice have landed, the rules of the game dictate death. I see only semantic equivocation as your Deus Ex "not fudging" here.

QuoteI don't want characters who can't die, nor have I ever said I do. I don't fudge rolls or outcomes, nor have I ever implied that this would be desirable. You are manufacturing positions for me with NO semblance to anything I have actually said.

You say it, deny it, say it, deny it, round and round. You never mean anything at all, apparently. You just keep jabbing at EVERY side that actually plays, regardless of "-ism," without ever actually offering an alternative.