Quote from: Phillip;887782Wow. Now you can't even distinguish your own posts? Pro tip: they're in separate, numbered boxes on the page. Also, I quoted that to which I was replying. It's not rocket science, really.

I can. It's post 702
http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=887679&postcount=702

You called the closing statement bullshit. Have you forgotten? I know you quoted it. I wonder if you read the rest our just jumped to the end. Go back and read the whole post. You'll find it pretty enlightening as to what my position is.

Now what is yours?

Quote from: Phillip;887780Because you were earnestly interested in learning my view, having a real conversation, rather than just being a troll. But I see that I gave you too much credit.

Is knowing my position a prerequisite for you to have one? And if that is not the case and you do have a position, is it necessary for me to spell mine out so you can defend yours?  Shouldn't your position (supposing you do have one) be able to stand on its own?

Quote from: Saurondor;887786Is knowing my position a prerequisite for you to have one? And if that is not the case and you do have a position, is it necessary for me to spell mine out so you can defend yours?  Shouldn't your position (supposing you do have one) be able to stand on its own?

I need to know what it is on which you expect me to take a position. As I said, I do not care to argue abstruse semantics, which is just the trap you appear to be laying. I have given it to you to define the terms because I want to understand your meaning, so that my own can be clear, not stumble in a darkness you seem ever more intent on favoring over the proper purpose of language.

Quote from: Phillip;887790I need to know what it is on which you expect me to take a position. As I said, I do not care to argue semantics, which is just the trap you appear to be laying. I have given it to you to define the terms because I want to understand your meaning, so that my own can be clear, not stumble in a darkness you seem ever more intent on favoring over the proper purpose of language.

You called my comment bullshit and yet your terms and position can't be expressed clearly unless I express and explain mine. Clearly you understood my meaning enough to call it bullshit. Don't come around calling It darkness now.

Quote from: Saurondor;887792You called my comment bullshit and yet your terms and position can't be expressed clearly unless I express and explain mine. Clearly you understood my meaning enough to call it bullshit. Don't come around calling It darkness now.

Your "logic" was/is bullshit: It's not straw-man Alternative A, therefore it must be Alternative C; Alternative B that is the actual serious contender is utterly irrelevant. Like getting called on it or don't, but bullshit is a proper term for that.

You seem to have folded on the silly claim that B and C are really the same. Can't actually man up and admit that you were wrong, though, eh? Distraction, distraction!

And once again you demonstrate your complete absence of good faith (as well as your incoherence regarding even your own posts, which should not be so hard to tell apart).

Quote from: Phillip;887797Your "logic" was/is bullshit: It's not straw-man Alternative A, therefore it must be Alternative C; Alternative B that is the actual serious contender is utterly irrelevant. Like getting called on it or don't, but bullshit is a proper term for that.

Philip I have tried my best to treat you in gentlemen's terms in spite of your comments. It is clear now you understood my comment and knew quite well what I meant by telling a story. How else can you conclude anything about my logic and stance without further clarification on my part.

I have given you ample time to save face and respond with your own position and spare yourself the hardship of labelling yourself as troll. You have unfortunately not grasped the courtesy and persist in using terms such as "bullshit" while at the same time providing no backing arguments or position of your own to back your statements.

You started by calling my comments bullshit without any backing argument. When questioned you claimed you're were not certain of what I meant. You asked me to state the meaning of terms as if you didn't understand what I had meant. All of this while refusing to present a position of your own and showing repeatedly a troll like behaviour of responding with simple "prefabricated" and offensive responses.

Never did you present your own arguments nor anything that would enlighten us as to your perspective of the situation. It was all a tedious and offensive streak of responses to my posts, all typical of troll behaviour. In the end you have come around to criticize my logic clearly admitting that you understood my position from the beginning. Behaviour that once again comes out as troll like.

Do you actually have something of value to say?

Quote from: Lunamancer;887645

QuoteMy conclusion is that you can't get narratively interesting results from simulationist mechanics / simulationist GM rulings with any sort of reliability unless you are making strongly narrative-focused decisions somewhere else.

Real life is full of interesting stories. It required no outside force to set it up, at least not in the past few billion years.

Definition of reliability.

Pick a random chunk of an average person's life and you are not going to reliably find an interesting narrative there.

QuoteNow I'm always weary whenever nerds use adverbs. So the term "narratively interesting" is suspect. Sort of a trojan horse where you can smuggle in counter arguments to thwart criticism.

The title of this thread is: How to Get Good Narrative From Rules of Simulation.

You may find adverbs like "good" and "interesting" suspect, but if that's the case you have absolutely nothing to contribute to this thread.

Quote from: Phillip;887728Funny, I never see this except in Internet posts by people who use the jargon "scene framing." Neither the term nor the problems have come up in my actual experience of RPGs, which is not surprising since I see no reason they should when they have not in the broader domain of simulation games.

Forget your "scenes" and stick with the referee's job of resolving moves, and maybe you'll find that you don't create the problem you struggle so to solve.

You appear to be playing some kind of semantics game, but since you failed to define your new terminology of "move" it's unclear what your goal is.

Insofar as you appear to be asserting that the GM never says "the goblins ambush you", I call bullshit.

Let me come back to an earlier point that I have thought about a bit.

At least one person has challenged the very idea of scene framing, at least as a narrative act.

Now, upon reflection, I will agree that it is possible that scene framing be handled almost entirely by mechanics of simulation. e.g. no scenes get focused on or started other than those expressly dictated by mechanics of simulation.

But than what are those mechanics?

Certainly, wandering monster checks fall into the category. And I can envisage a system in which an expressly formulated system of rules dictates every single scene that gets played out.

But outside of such a rigorous system, what do people consider the dictates of simulation that remove the act of scene framing from the GM as a narrative function?

As an example. Let's imagine we are playing out a hex crawl.

Do terrain changes get narrated? The transition from grassland to woods or hills to mountains? Do camping scenes get narrated? Conversations between PCs as they travel?

Personally, I think all of this sort of thing has potential to increase the strength of a game's narrative, but I have seen very little GM guidance as to when or even if to focus on such things. So unless we are somehow moving from scene to scene on a purely mechanical basis, I would consider these choices of where to focus and what to skip to be narrative choices, or at least they probably should be. And I think that pacing and opportunities for character development (along with other narrative concerns) are things that are worth considering as factors, rather than just "when is the next wandering monster check" or other purely simulative processes which mandate focus.

Although I will say I find the idea of scene framing as purely a simulative procedure to be quite interesting. One thing that might add to the narrative quality of such procedural generation would be to broaden the idea of random encounters to include random events. Anyone know of games that do this?

Regarding scene framing:

I think that "scene framing" in a simulation is not an internal aspect of the simulation itself, but an aspect of its use and it would be a task of adapting the resolution/ speed of resolution of the simulation - and it would not be the task of the GM alone.

Rather he would do something like ask: There seems to be not much going on currently, could we wind forward? Thus it would get checked if anyone has still some interest in the current situation or if the group can move on.

And once someone hears something from the following description of things happening he or she will call for a stop and a closer examination.


Besides the basic problem I see in this discussion is a missing definition by the starter for good narrative.

You can define narrative as any communication about something happening, but on this level, there is almost no room for a label like "good" besides technically clear und distinct communication. And this is on the other hand rather independent from "rules of simulation".

Regarding "interesting":
Interesting is very much a question of taste and thus what someone finds interesting will be quite different for different people. So "getting something interesting" (or "fun") out of a game is not a precise statement, but will get you many different, most probably often incompatible answers.

Quote from: Maarzan;887810Regarding scene framing:

I think that "scene framing" in a simulation is not an internal aspect of the simulation itself, but an aspect of its use and it would be a task of adapting the resolution/ speed of resolution of the simulation - and it would not be the task of the GM alone.

Rather he would do something like ask: There seems to be not much going on currently, could we wind forward? Thus it would get checked if anyone has still some interest in the current situation or if the group can move on.

And once someone hears something from the following description of things happening he or she will call for a stop and a closer examination.

While this has been touched on, and I largely agree with it, I do think it is a bit more complex than this.

A few points:

:Some players, particularly if they are feeling immersed, may maintain interest in roleplaying their character well after the scene loses interest for the majority of the table. I think it pays for a GM to be aware of these kinds of things and to develop a talent for subtly drawing scenes to a close and moving forward.

: I think that, rather than just wait for players to ask to move on, it pays for a GM to develop a sense for this himself. I absolutely see the question, "What do you want to do next?" as a framing tool, and "Travel to the dungeon," is a legitimate answer, but it leaves the matter of what the next scene is very wide open.

: And yes, I would say scene framing occurs at an intersection between player intent and GM presentation. And I very much think it is helpful to let players know that they can focus on framing scenes to explore narrative elements rather than just purely in terms of the simulation.

So for example, yes, they may want to go travel to the dungeon on the sim level, and that's fine, but better yet when they start setting stuff up like, "Can we do a scene on the way where we are talking about our pasts and I mention the death of my brother?" Not just, "Let's roleplay some meaningless conversation on the trip," but stuff with intent.

I have said before that I am totally in favor of immersion, however, ideally I want players who are immersed not only in their roles, but in their portrayal of those roles, and I think this dual level of immersion is far from impossible.

QuoteBesides the basic problem I see in this discussion is a missing definition by the starter for good narrative.

You can define narrative as any communication about something happening, but on this level, there is almost no room for a label like "good" besides technically clear und distinct communication. And this is on the other hand rather independent from "rules of simulation".

Regarding "interesting":
Interesting is very much a question of taste and thus what someone finds interesting will be quite different for different people. So "getting something interesting" (or "fun") out of a game is not a precise statement, but will get you many different, most probably often incompatible answers.

I'm not interested in defining "good" or "interesting" in the context of these things as narrative qualities. Turning to movies for a moment, which I think we can all agree are a narrative form, I would call Star Wars a good and interesting movie. I would also call No Country for Old Men a good and interesting movie. But these are wildly different narratives! How can they both be good?

"Good" and "interesting" are totally subjective. And that is okay. I have mentioned multiple things that I generally find important to me personally when it comes to good narrative, like having characters that you care about, having good pacing. But someone else may completely disagree with me.

The subject is intended to be wide open. If caring about the characters is unimportant to you? You can skip stuff said on that subject as being unimportant to you and instead talk about what you consider qualities of a good narrative (or even a particular subset of good narrative) and talk about achieving those qualities.

Would I expect some common ground to emerge as far as what constitutes "good narrative'? Yeah, somewhat. But trying to define in advance what that common ground would be sounds like a losing proposition which would only lead to more pointless bickering.

Quote from: Manzanaro;887815While this has been touched on, and I largely agree with it, I do think it is a bit more complex than this.

A few points:

:Some players, particularly if they are feeling immersed, may maintain interest in roleplaying their character well after the scene loses interest for the majority of the table. I think it pays for a GM to be aware of these kinds of things and to develop a talent for subtly drawing scenes to a close and moving forward.

: I think that, rather than just wait for players to ask to move on, it pays for a GM to develop a sense for this himself. I absolutely see the question, "What do you want to do next?" as a framing tool, and "Travel to the dungeon," is a legitimate answer, but it leaves the matter of what the next scene is very wide open.

: And yes, I would say scene framing occurs at an intersection between player intent and GM presentation. And I very much think it is helpful to let players know that they can focus on framing scenes to explore narrative elements rather than just purely in terms of the simulation.

So for example, yes, they may want to go travel to the dungeon on the sim level, and that's fine, but better yet when they start setting stuff up like, "Can we do a scene on the way where we are talking about our pasts and I mention the death of my brother?" Not just, "Let's roleplay some meaningless conversation on the trip," but stuff with intent.

I have said before that I am totally in favor of immersion, however, ideally I want players who are immersed not only in their roles, but in their portrayal of those roles, and I think this dual level of immersion is far from impossible.



I'm not interested in defining "good" or "interesting" in the context of these things as narrative qualities. Turning to movies for a moment, which I think we can all agree are a narrative form, I would call Star Wars a good and interesting movie. I would also call No Country for Old Men a good and interesting movie. But these are wildly different narratives! How can they both be good?

"Good" and "interesting" are totally subjective. And that is okay. I have mentioned multiple things that I generally find important to me personally when it comes to good narrative, like having characters that you care about, having good pacing. But someone else may completely disagree with me.

The subject is intended to be wide open. If caring about the characters is unimportant to you? You can skip stuff said on that subject as being unimportant to you and instead talk about what you consider qualities of a good narrative (or even a particular subset of good narrative) and talk about achieving those qualities.

Would I expect some common ground to emerge as far as what constitutes "good narrative'? Yeah, somewhat. But trying to define in advance what that common ground would be sounds like a losing proposition which would only lead to more pointless bickering.

If it is clear that a distinct minority is keeping the focus and the rest gets bored then it is a task for the game master to do some management, either by urging the laggards or if it looks like something really important for them to look what could find interest with the other players and distribute some spotlight. (and keep an eye on long time shares. If the academic is doing his research in the city to be prepared for his few spot lights in the field, it is completely OK I think to give him his time in the city, even if the fighters are grumbling and want to start with field work where they will be getting most of the spotlight) It will be hard to find a perfect match, but that is a point with all social events of heterogen participants.

I also think that it is part of the GM´s job (but not his sole privilege) to include stops to pronounce the general expression. If nobody catched, ok, return to fast forward. On the other hand I would just call for a stop to be able to try to talk with another character on the way. Whether I get to include my dead brother or not the performance will show. Deciding whether mentioning him is meaningless chatter amd whether they want to talk about their pasts or not is up to the taste of the other players and nothing I can "set for the scene".

I also have a personal problem with "explore narrative elements", as I don´t think about this this way and thus I have to try to understand your definition to be able to try to answer questions in this direction. I don´t see it this way and thus my internal answer would be "there are no narrative elements" beyond those of the most basic communication definition and those are so broad to be useless here. And without me having a fitting view and (generically) "you" not saying what you mean with narration I will have to assume positions and definitions that I have met on the internet and which probably are quite different (and being the internet much more radical) that what you are thinking about.
Personally I don´t see any direct link between interesting and narration. There are some coincidences, where an interesting (for me) game event could make an interesting (for me) narration, but this would be by chance and forcing it would damage (for me) the elements that made the event an interesting gaming event.

I also have no idea what "immersion in the portrayal" would look like. I have met immersion as "immersion in character", I have seen it as immersion in the "flow"/"thrill" - be it challenge or story -, but "portrayal" is currently beyond my understanding.

Quote from: Maarzan;887816I also think that it is part of the GM´s job (but not his sole privilege) to include stops to pronounce the general expression. If nobody catched, ok, return to fast forward. On the other hand I would just call for a stop to be able to try to talk with another character on the way. Whether I get to include my dead brother or not the performance will show. Deciding whether mentioning him is meaningless chatter amd whether they want to talk about their pasts or not is up to the taste of the other players and nothing I can "set for the scene".

No, it's not about setting up for the scene. It's about scene's going places, and not framing scenes that you have no expectation to go any place. So for instance, I don't want to watch PCs argue about who is going to be on watch, if who is going to be on watch is all that is on stake. But if the point of the scene is to show what an asshole the characters are? Awesome! And then once that is conveyed to the extent that I think it is only going to lose effect? Move on. (Hell, I have actually used this to stop real arguments, "Nice work showing your characters are petty dickheads, guys! Okay, so the next morning...")

Characters talking and hoping it goes somewhere interesting tends to be dull. But then I am not saying anybody should know exactly where it will go either... Just that if a scene is getting played out it should be something someone actively wants to see.

QuoteI also have a personal problem with "explore narrative elements", as I don´t think about this this way and thus I have to try to understand your definition to be able to try to answer questions in this direction. I don´t see it this way and thus my internal answer would be "there are no narrative elements" beyond those of the most basic communication definition and those are so broad to be useless here. And without me having a fitting view and (generically) "you" not saying what you mean with narration I will have to assume positions and definitions that I have met on the internet and which probably are quite different (and being the internet much more radical) that what you are thinking about.

So what I mean is, in sim play I think players tend to come at things in terms of aiming for effectiveness; problem solving. So scenes tend to be all about overcoming obstacles, or perhaps about obtaining the means to overcome future obstacles.

So what I am saying is, while that is fine, I want players to also know it is fine to have scenes that are focused on more narrative concerns, most notably on conveying and developing who their character's are and exploring the relationships they have with others. Example: The party killed their first bandits. As the trip progresses a player says he wants to do a little scene. He gets the okay and talks about standing on a riverbank during the travel break for lunch. He talks about how he eyes the bloodstained purse full of copper coins he took off of a bandit corpse. How he shudders and hurls the purse in the river. BAM. Wrap. In one minute he just developed his character.

QuotePersonally I don´t see any direct link between interesting and narration. There are some coincidences, where an interesting (for me) game event could make an interesting (for me) narration, but this would be by chance and forcing it would damage (for me) the elements that made the event an interesting gaming event.

I'm not totally sure I follow you here, but not all effective narration is florid or overwrought. Sometimes the most effective act of narration can be a pause.

QuoteI also have no idea what "immersion in the portrayal" would look like. I have met immersion as "immersion in character", I have seen it as immersion in the "flow"/"thrill" - be it challenge or story -, but "portrayal" is currently beyond my understanding.

It means immersing not just in the role of the character, but in the portrayal of that character in such a fashion as to show the other people at the table who that character is. Getting deeply into the performance.

But it is not up to you where the scene is going. You are not the only one at the table and others probably have other ideas.
For someone else the watch discussion is about experiencing being a professional on a dangerous mission and make details probably matter. For someone else the same topic is about staying on the easy side of life and forwarding work and risk to someone else, which is saying as much about his character as the brother talk to you (which someone else will probably think of as "dull").

If no one is interested a fast forward suggestion will be just routine, but it is not about one person feeling bored or missing the point someone else wants to adress/experience.

My opinion is: if you want something get done in a running simulation, it is up to your char to do/try it within the predefined limits of your character. Everything else is up to the clockwork machine.
So do your stop and throw the purse. It is nothing a simulation can´t handle and nothing that isn´t in your complete control either.

The "effectiveness" part is probably traditionally a big chunk of simulation (and I think it is also debatable whether is is really simulation what we see there at the core or just some gamism "dipping class" into simulation territory to supplement its own arsenal of crunchy bits).

But simulation is much more than this. It is just a question of focus. So the topics will/can be exactly the same as what you mention with developing who their characters are and what relationships they have, but the instruments to support them and how the player can influence this will probably vary. I still don´t know what you exactly mean with narrative concerns, but in a simulation you will probably have expressed these relations with numbers in several levels and also the "moral values" the character picked up from growing up and his previous experiences and then just look how the conflicts at hand and the solution attempts of the char will play out. Afterwards it is up to you how to express these results.  

I also recognize that "social simulation" is unfortunately a rather sparcly worked field in relation to other themes but I see that it is a rather complicated field too.  

Regarding portrayal:
If the 1.Person performance is meant, then this is something most character immersionists are striving for anyway (but certainly not that many simulationists in contrast). It is just that you have to be good at it for the other players to care. But unless you are hogging undue spotlight, no one is stopping you trying. It is not about the simulation itself but communicating the results from your perspective.

Quote from: Maarzan;887825But it is not up to you where the scene is going. You are not the only one at the table and others probably have other ideas.
For someone else the watch discussion is about experiencing being a professional on a dangerous mission and make details probably matter. For someone else the same topic is about staying on the easy side of life and forwarding work and risk to someone else, which is saying as much about his character as the brother talk to you (which someone else will probably think of as "dull").

Firstly, to quote myself from that last post:

"But then I am not saying anybody should know exactly where it will go either... Just that if a scene is getting played out it should be something someone actively wants to see."

So all those things that you say it might be about? Show that. The point is that if it isn't about anything? We don't need to play it out. And a further point, in line with pacing considerations, is that any of the things you mention can be shown fairly quickly, which I think is essential.

And sure, someone might consider anything to be dull. But dull I can deal with. Pointless is another story.

As far as you saying, go ahead and do it? (The coin purse toss) Well sure... Unless of course travel time is just skipped. So part of what I am talking about here is providing opportunities for these kind of things. And I would agree with you that such opportunities for player directed "scene framing" fall well within what is acceptable under rules of simulation.

Here's another edit: Can you mechanically simulate personality? Sure... But that doesn't mean it is the only way. Generally speaking character personality is player authored. Like I have said before, no RPG is going to operate purely on principles of simulation. There is always going to be authored content and narration.

and 'narrative considerations' is very broad. Whatever you might assume I mean by it is probably included, and then some.

But you will probably also not know whether someone has a point with some action. And the time needed will also be rather subjective.
And the showing is done by doing whatever someone wanted to do.

So I think it is best politics to just let it run and ideally someone gets the feeling no one seems really invested anymore and then asks if speeding up is acceptable.

Yes, asking for a slow down for some focus is completely compatible with simulation in my eyes. So no differences there.