Quote from: -E.;881644Many years ago, I ran a one-shot game

Let me stop you right there.

If you're running a one-shot, then the narrative way of doing things is probably what you want.  Stories begin and end.  Lives continue until they are ended.

You can pack a whole lot of narrative satisfaction into a book or movie too, but that's not necessarily a satisfying life, even if you read or watched several thousand.

You're not gonna get much payoff of the IC immersive roleplaying way of doing things in a one-shot.  As a result, convention scenarios tend to be tightly plotted and players kind of agree to not color too far outside the lines, we all know we're here for one night only.

Also maybe you don't see an interesting point - you were the GM who designed and ran the narration and it happened even better than way you planned.  Ok, but the satisfaction of a GM is completely different than the satisfaction of a player to begin with, so, while sounds like a helluva game, not exactly on point.

Quote from: -E.;881644I can't imagine getting anything like that level of satisfaction or emotional engagement (immersion?) from a game where action was driven mechanically.

Jesus Wept.  In an IC immersive campaign, action is not driven mechanically, it's driven by the choices of the characters being roleplayed by the players.  Mechanics are Task Resolution.  That's it.  They are only there so that when I go "Bang, you're Dead!" and you say "No, you missed." we have a better way of doing it than Rock, Paper, Scissors every single time (not knocking the LARP crowd).

CRKrueger, so when you are GMing with your focus on immersion, do you make an effort to play through every single moment of the PCs lives?

Do you describe dining experiences? Going to the bathroom? Moment by moment descriptions of even very long journeys? If the PCs find themselves waiting in ambush for an hour would you have everybody sit for an hour doing nothing so as to better let them feel what their characters experience?

Or do you, you know, skip the boring crap?

Because, unless you DO play out every single moment of their lives? You are making choices about what scenes to focus on, describe and play out, and this kind of scene framing and skipping over things that don't interest you is based on your personal feelings for what makes a good narrative, whether you realize it or not.

estar, 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'.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881571In many RPGs you create your character and then you buy gear. A prominent part of gear selection tends to be lists of weapons and armor. So quite often you buy them and I think this creates the expectation of combat as a primary problem solving tool.

Did you copy-paste that from Ron's big book of stupid? Seems like everyone who bought into his "narrativist" drivel trots this out at some point.

Lets look at 5th ed D&D. Out of the 600 odd pages between PHB and DMG. How many pages are combat rules? 15. Theres 6 pages of armour and weapons. But 12 on gear and non-combat things. AD&D and BX are much the same.

Not to mention the little fact that. You know. You don't need tools and gadgets to talk to people? And in general there arent much rules for talking to people in RPGs because it was assumed that the players would RP that rather than needing extensive rules on how to say "Hi".

Back on topic.

If you want to talk to people then get out into town and interact with the NPCs. At some tables it is vital to getting anything done. Especially in city-centric campaigns where the story that may unfold is more urban or courtly related.

A system I have pointed out before is a little DM game called How to Host a Dungeon. It creates a vertical system of caves and habitats that builds up a history for the area and the seeds of ideas for why things are in the state they are when the party gets there. There is another one that generates a town with various interconnections, secrets and plots between the inhabitants. From things like this you can get ideas for the setting and whats going on and from there the players are as free as you allow to interact with any or all of this as they desire. The story then unfolds in now they impact any of these things. Did they decide to help the farmer figure out who is sabotaging the crops? Did they decide to deliver a package for the widow? and so on. The narrative grows from the sim as it were. Or the sim lays the foundations for the narrative.

Hey Omega, however angry you may get at me that doesn't change the fact that a whole lot of RPG sessions that I have taken part in or just observed do indeed have combat as their focus. You may not agree with my hypotheses as to why and that's fine.

It's not really pertinent and the only reason I speculated on reasons is that I was asked to do so.

My only issue with combat is that I find it boring if it gets reduced to a pointless gameplay staple, as I have already said. I certainly don't think such focus is automatically inherent in the rules, just that some people see that combat focus as how RPGs are supposed to be played.

The remainder of your post is much more pertinent and I appreciate your thoughts.

Quote from: CRKrueger;881672They are only there so that when I go "Bang, you're Dead!" and you say "No, you missed." we have a better way of doing it than Rock, Paper, Scissors every single time (not knocking the LARP crowd).

mini detrailment of thread.

Most LARPs I've ever been at dont use RPS or much randomization at all. There must be some that do. But to date havent seen.

But otherwise spot on.

Mechanics often add both a level of uncertainty to an action. And they can be a gauge of risk. Which then factors in player choice as to how to deal with the situation.

I wonder how much of the "story as an emergent property" is predicated on the notion of an ongoing campaign?

Likewise I wonder how much the focus on dramatic pacing with a view towards building up to satisfying conclusion is tied to shorter or even single-session games?

Quote from: Manzanaro;881683Hey Omega, however angry you may get at me that doesn't change the fact that a whole lot of RPG sessions that I have taken part in or just observed do indeed have combat as their focus. You may not agree with my hypotheses as to why and that's fine.

The remainder of your post is much more pertinent and I appreciate your thoughts.

Not angry. Its just that intentional or not you were parroting a line some GNS followers liked to spout.

If your RPs are alot of combat then have you tried exploring towns or talking with those you meet along the way? Or asking the DM for more than just battle battle battle which IS boring as all hell after a while if theres nothing to break that up.

When I am a player I love to negotiate and try to defuse encounters before they escalate to combat. That doesnt allways work of course. But once I get a foot in the door that opens up all sorts of opportunities. Another thing I like to do as a player is look at the reasons behind the things we find. Why is this skeleton here? Who the hell left elven chain in a chest in this little hidey-hole? Why are the orcs building that fort in the swamp and is it connected to the bullywugs acting up? Why does farmer Jenkins in town hate elves? Why does the elven provisions merchant only buy and sell Jenkins produce? And so on.

The key is having a DM who opens up, reacts to, allows for and plays up those things.

Some DMs are just really poor at social aspects of RPGs and so focus on the combat. Some dont like social RPing. Some just dont know to try it for whatever reason. Some players really hate social RPing and just want to kill kill kill.

Quote from: Soylent Green;881685I wonder how much of the "story as an emergent property" is predicated on the notion of an ongoing campaign?

Likewise I wonder how much the focus on dramatic pacing with a view towards building up to satisfying conclusion is tied to shorter or even single-session games?

Good question.

From personal experience none at all. No difference. Both styles cross every border about equally. You'll have epic adventures plotted out start to finish and single sessions where alot of character outgrowth happens.

I have though noticed that city-centric campaigns tend to have more  opportunities for interaction and character growth. And more opportunities to effect or be a part of the setting locally. If lay good odds others have seen the exact opposite and more impact at adventure sites.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881679CRKrueger, so when you are GMing with your focus on immersion, do you make an effort to play through every single moment of the PCs lives?

Do you describe dining experiences? Going to the bathroom? Moment by moment descriptions of even very long journeys? If the PCs find themselves waiting in ambush for an hour would you have everybody sit for an hour doing nothing so as to better let them feel what their characters experience?

Or do you, you know, skip the boring crap?

Because, unless you DO play out every single moment of their lives? You are making choices about what scenes to focus on, describe and play out, and this kind of scene framing and skipping over things that don't interest you is based on your personal feelings for what makes a good narrative, whether you realize it or not.

Nope. Completely and totally incorrect.  BTW, while you think you're the one clued-in with all your Storygames.com 101 terminology, syntax, and "I know the truth of what you think you experience, even if you don't." attitude, you're actually the blind man telling the sighted about color.

I don't tell my players, "Now you're going to take a piss.", or "Now you're doing something interesting."

They tell me.

I don't frame a scene deciding what's important.  I describe what's there, and THE PLAYERS decide what's important.  If I describe a guy pissing in an alley, it's only important if they make it so.

If the players decide to use all their survival and tracking skills to mask their travel through a forest, they don't need to describe how they are dealing with shit, piss and food waste, the skill covers that.

If the halfling decides to get up early and make a killer breakfast, that's for him to decide.  If he does well, maybe they can push farther that day.  I didn't ask them, they chose what's important.

If the Tracker decides to analyze the Flora and soil and make wrappings for people's feet to make everyone quieter, it might work, but it's their doing, not mine.

There's an old chestnut, "You don't know what you don't know."  Many of us are describing something, you obviously have never experienced.

Go to a Con, find a group of old fat guys playing an older game, sit down and see what happens.

Quote from: CRKrueger;881697Nope. Completely and totally incorrect.  BTW, while you think you're the one clued-in with all your Storygames.com 101 terminology, syntax, and "I know the truth of what you think you experience, even if you don't." attitude, you're actually the blind man telling the sighted about color.

Following this thread requires some zen techniques, indeed. But it is exploring interesting territory, so it is definitely worth reading.

First of all: dudes, Ron has to have bitten you very hard for you to have such bile against him (and his entourage - the guy draws strength from his worshipers along the lines of Gloranthan support to HeroQuest, this is an acknowledged fact). The point here is that _you_ are constantly thinking of the Forge and other theories you believe are shit. Manzanaro is not, as far as I can tell - he is just exploring roleplaying possibilities that are not coincident with what you prefer. And asking questions, not spouting lore.

If you re-read your statements in this particular thread, it turns out that it is you who suggest that "you know the nature of the other guy's fun better than him". This is what you wrote, almost verbatim: "when I roleplay, I do x and y, but you do w and z". How do you know how he roleplays? Manzanaro didn't speculate about the nature of your fun - he asked, at most. If some of the words and concepts he exposed remind you of other statements made by Ron, then tell Ron to go f... himself, not Manzanaro.

Having closed the methodological parenthesis (man, how much controversy can this dang forge theory generate...) I would like to ask some questions to the opening poster.

Manzanaro, given the evident ill effect of using terms like "narrative", can you explain us in detail which features of "fiction" you would like to emerge from your roleplaying? You said "I want to get the feeling of being in a novel or film, while using only simulationist (better defined as associated, or better even as intra-diagetic) techniques and mechanics". The core question is: what does exactly make the difference between you "feeling in a novel" and "not feeling in a novel". If we could be very very clear on this point, before establishing whether what you are looking for is an RP experience that Krueger or estar would find enjoyable (they still have the right to say "what is fun for you sucks for me" - it is legit), that would certainly help the discussion.

Quote from: CRKrueger;881697I don't tell my players, "Now you're going to take a piss.", or "Now you're doing something interesting."

They tell me.

Thanks for the chuckle at any rate.

Rosen McStern, I appreciate that last post.

As far as the exact qualities I am talking about goes? That is harder to put a finger on and in fact varies somewhat from game to game and genre to genre, but let me see what springs to mind:

A feeling of an authentic setting with characters (PC and NPC) that are real

Opportunities to explore and define who characters are and their relationships with other characters

Causality that is not based on narrative tropes (like the heroes always win in the end) or on system mastery, but where losses carry some dramatic weight rather than just being looked at as a failure state

Attitudes towards violence that don't serve as a constant reminder that you are just playing a game and so killing 200 mooks carries no moral weight

An awareness of things like pacing, drama, and suspense, decoupled from an intent to arrive at some predetermined final outcome

A willingness to engage in description rather than things like "5 orcs burst in and attack" with the assumption that everyone knows what an orc looks like so why bother with any details?

Consciously working as a group to maintain atmosphere and tone

Gaming that evokes a sense of wonder, where magic and monsters and superheroes and aliens and the PCs themselves are cool and worth dwelling on, and not just trappings for tactical minigames and loot fests

That's probably enough for starters. By way of example in terms of fiction, I would look at the writing of people like George Martin and Steven Erikson whose writing (at their best) is very naturalistic feeling and unpredictable, seeming ungoverned by familiar narrative conventions while simultaneously making deft use of narrative principles like drama, suspense, and coaxing character investment from the reader.

CRKrueger, let's try an exercise.

Let's say you are running D&D. The players tell you thst they have decided they want to travel to Black Skull Castle, which is a dungeon type site two weeks journey away through the feared Ghostmorn Wood.

How do you advance the game from there?

If you aren't clear about what I am asking I can try and be more specific.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881562Honestly? Not even so much that... I just get tired of combat as being a reflexive and largely unexamined problem solving tool. I am totally down with a good combat... but I want it to mean something. I want it to have a context that makes me feel invested in the outcome.

Yes.  The intended point of my earlier response was much more "context is what makes things (including combat) meaningful and, therefore, interesting" rather than to plug immersion.

But having that context does not require narrative techniques unless you define "narrative" so broadly that it includes everything outside of the actual game mechanics.  And, if you define it that broadly, then it is axiomatically impossible to get what you seem to be asking for - if the mechanics alone are not sufficiently engaging, and everything outside the mechanics is "narrative", then there is no way to add anything outside of the mechanics without using "narrative" techniques.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881679Because, unless you DO play out every single moment of their lives? You are making choices about what scenes to focus on, describe and play out, and this kind of scene framing and skipping over things that don't interest you is based on your personal feelings for what makes a good narrative, whether you realize it or not.

No, I'm not.

Which events get time at my table and which are skipped over is a function of what the GM and/or players think would be interesting events to play out or would have potentially important consequences:  Using the toilet is boring, so we skip that.  Joining a bunch of peasants who are throwing mud at their pigs and taking bets on who can hit them is interesting, so we'll play that out.  Combat has the potential for important consequences (dead/injured PCs, etc.), so we play that out, too, even if it can sometimes be a little boring under the circumstances.  (Boring combats are best avoided, of course, but it does sometimes happen and I feel that the stakes are too high to just gloss over them.)

In no case does it have anything to do with what would be dramatic, whether it builds tension, or any other sort of narrative concerns.

Quote from: Manzanaro;881681Unfortunately 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'.

No, I'm reading it as "telling a story".  Which is kind of the definition of the word.  Whether it's the GM telling a story to the players or everyone at the table telling a collaborative story doesn't enter into it.

The 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.

If you really want to get away from the bickering over what "narration" means, I think RosenMcStern had the right idea.  Stop using that word and, instead, try to describe what you mean and what you're looking for using different words which have not been tainted by association with Ron Edwards' theories.  (And ideally also trying to avoid literary/storytelling terminology, too, since that's likely to get sucked into similar disputes.)