Quote from: Nexus;889311Hero System allows it too and I've seen it in some others. You can add new abilities with experience in mid play if here is a reason for it at the GM's discretion and having had it "all along" but its just never come up before is generally acceptable if it doesn't contradict established things about the character. It doesn't like Narrative Control just character advancement/development. The player can even explain it as the character just has a knack for this particular task and picks it up faster judging from example.

Back with my gaming collection now. Doing some quick spot checks, I find that this mechanic is found in:

- GURPS
- Hero
- Gumshoe
- Feng Shui
- Shadowrun (for certain abilities)

It's not universal. (The 20th Anniversary edition of Vampire, for example, specifies that you can only spend points between sessions.) But it seems to be common enough that it would be odd to consider it unusual.

Quote from: CRKrueger;889316GM: This small alley is a dead-end.  There's a door on the left secured with a heavy lock.
Player: I spend 2XP, that lock looks like it's crafted by a locksmith that grew up in my village, it has her signature hasp.  I apprenticed with her for a summer, let me see if I can open it.

You've pulled a fast one here. Both of the examples in Numenera feature the character noticing something about the game world ("these locks are all from my home town" or "I'm currently climbing in mountains") and then the player spending XP to declare that they have previous experience with the thing in question.

You've shifted it so that the player is spending XP to both declare the thing their character is noticing their previous experience with it.

QuoteThe authors themselves call the mechanic story-based.

This is true. But it's also obvious that Cook isn't using "[these] benefits are usually story-based" to mean "this is a narrative control mechanic". On the same page, for example, we find this quote: "Some things that a PC can acquire as a long-term benefit are story based. For example, in the course of play, the character might gain a friend (a contact) or build a log cabin (a home)." Cook is using the phrase "story based" to mean "stuff that originates from the events happening in the game world".

In the case of the short-term mountain climbing benefit, the story based benefit they're talking about is "...she spends the XP after she's been in the mountains awhile and says that she's picked up a feel for climbing there."

Quote from: CRKrueger;889323When you say "these types of mountains are just like the mountains back home" you are altering the mountains to make them just like the mountains back home.

Not really, though. You're defining the mountains back home to be like these mountains.

The ability to continue developing your character's history after play begins is also not unusual in RPGs. If you didn't happen to name your character's parents and then one day you mention that your father's name is Stephen, no one is going to claim that you've "altered the game world". Same is true if you name the village you grew up in. Or mention that the inn you've just arrived at reminds you of the one in your home town.

In some cases, your character creation declarations might conflict with the GM's known facts about the world (and this is true whether those declarations are made before or after play begins). In those situations, we discover that ultimate authority still resides with the GM because their permission is required.

Which brings us back to the Cypher system, where the short-, medium-, and long-term benefits all require GM approval.

You complain about people trying to redefine the language until words don't mean anything, but trying to make the term narrative control mechanics apply to character creation and advancement options that require GM approval is to render the term meaningless.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;889455Not really, though. You're defining the mountains back home to be like these mountains.

Ok, that's another way of looking at it, but I don't subscribe to the notion of "characters allowed to fill in their backstory" to reach the level of plate tectonics of the world and continental geology

The "it's all about the character" you're throwing up is just a smokescreen to cover the fact that there are two mountain ranges that may or may not have actually been similar beforehand, but now they are.

Also the fact that the Home Range is like the Current Range may be established once through the use of the term.  You find yourself in the New Range and another use of the mechanic (because you still haven't actually bought climbing) now makes this New Range like the other two.

"Anything even remotely connected to the character, including true facts about the places they've ever been" aren't part of character advancement no matter how many times you keep saying it.   The names of the character's parents are not the same type of fact as whether there is a marsh outside Phoenix, Arizona.  The name of their stuffed toy doesn't have the same impact as declaring the forests outside Uppsala are the same as those outside Rio De Janeiro.

GM approval allowing the player to edit the world means that after approval is given, the player edits the world.  GM approval doesn't mean you're not editing the world.  It means the world-editing mechanic doesn't happen whether the GM allows it or not.

You want to argue that if the player doesn't have true Authority and if the change can be denied then it's not really Authority, I can accept that argument of the term but control doesn't have to be absolute control.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;889455You complain about people trying to redefine the language until words don't mean anything, but trying to make the term narrative control mechanics apply to character creation and advancement options that require GM approval is to render the term meaningless.

Narrative Control can be minor or major, it can be with GM or table approval, or it can be absolute.  It still is what it is.

You're the one who's stretching character advancement and character creation to ridiculous levels.  Three years after chargen and we're still finding out new things about the character that conveniently keep getting them out of situations, just like the specific subtype of literary device the mechanic was meant to imitate.

When a mechanic is almost a perfect translation of a literary device into game mechanics, it's kind of amazing you can refer to it as not a narrative mechanic.  It's actually a very well-constructed mechanic, which does exactly what it sets out to do.

You agree it's a dissociated mechanic, so when you choose to have a mechanic be dissociated, what is your purpose for doing so?

Retroactive chargen is not the purpose of the mechanic, it's the effect of the mechanic.  Why are you retroactively chargenning?  Because the character has encountered a situation they currently do not have a skill for and the player wants a greater chance of success, so they author the fact that they had the skill all along(classic Deus Ex Machina) and the character now has a greater chance to pass the test.

If using a classic literary device expressed into game mechanics for the purpose of allowing the player to alter the history of the character and/or edit the world to affect the outcome of what the character is going to do isn't a narrative control mechanic, then what is?

BTW - You mischaracterized my argument.  I'll give you that the lock scenario does say the character notices the locks are a particular design, although you could argue whether that was actual info given by the GM or all part of the same mechanic.  If you think I'm misinterpreting the text of the lock section, fine.  However, the mountain example DOES NOT say the character finds themselves in mountains similar to the ones at home.  So I'm not misquoting the text or pulling anything with the mountain example, I quoted it as is, and in that example, there is the geological transformation.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;889455Back with my gaming collection now. Doing some quick spot checks, I find that this mechanic is found in:

- GURPS
- Hero
- Gumshoe
- Feng Shui
- Shadowrun (for certain abilities)

It's not universal. (The 20th Anniversary edition of Vampire, for example, specifies that you can only spend points between sessions.) But it seems to be common enough that it would be odd to consider it unusual.

That sounds right. I'd bet that its an option in other point based systems but I can't verify as well or at least not explicitly forbidden.  but I can't verify that.

QuoteNot really, though. You're defining the mountains back home to be like these mountains.

The ability to continue developing your character's history after play begins is also not unusual in RPGs. If you didn't happen to name your character's parents and then one day you mention that your father's name is Stephen, no one is going to claim that you've "altered the game world". Same is true if you name the village you grew up in. Or mention that the inn you've just arrived at reminds you of the one in your home town.

In some cases, your character creation declarations might conflict with the GM's known facts about the world (and this is true whether those declarations are made before or after play begins). In those situations, we discover that ultimate authority still resides with the GM because their permission is required.

Which brings us back to the Cypher system, where the short-, medium-, and long-term benefits all require GM approval.

You complain about people trying to redefine the language until words don't mean anything, but trying to make the term narrative control mechanics apply to character creation and advancement options that require GM approval is to render the term meaningless.

Agreed.

Quote from: Nexus;889734That sounds right. I'd bet that its an option in other point based systems but I can't verify as well or at least not explicitly forbidden.  but I can't verify that.

Can't verify any of the others either, because there are no page cites given.  Wonder if tracking them down we'll find they just might not be as close as claimed? :hmm:

Quote from: CRKrueger;889504"Anything even remotely connected to the character, including true facts about the places they've ever been" aren't part of character advancement no matter how many times you keep saying it.

I'm comfortable in my statement that most RPG players simply wouldn't find anything remarkable about players naming the village they grew up in or describing events that happened to them before the campaign started. Nor would they find it unusual that, in some cases, the GM would say, "Actually, that doesn't quite work."

YMMV.

QuoteHowever, the mountain example DOES NOT say the character finds themselves in mountains similar to the ones at home. So I'm not misquoting the text or pulling anything with the mountain example, I quoted it as is, and in that example, there is the geological transformation.

Actually, the reason the example doesn't say that the character finds themselves in mountains similar to the ones back home before the player uses their ability is because the example from the book NEVER features mountains that are like the ones back home. That was something that you made up.

The actual example from the book is the player saying "she has experience with climbing in regions like these".

So, yes, you were (and are) misquoting the text. I went along with it when I assumed it was just an irrelevant alteration, but you've now pinned your entire argument on the very specific semantics of the quote that you made up.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;889869I'm comfortable in my statement that most RPG players simply wouldn't find anything remarkable about players naming the village they grew up in or describing events that happened to them before the campaign started. Nor would they find it unusual that, in some cases, the GM would say, "Actually, that doesn't quite work."

YMMV.



Actually, the reason the example doesn't say that the character finds themselves in mountains similar to the ones back home before the player uses their ability is because the example from the book NEVER features mountains that are like the ones back home. That was something that you made up.

The actual example from the book is the player saying "she has experience with climbing in regions like these".

So, yes, you were (and are) misquoting the text. I went along with it when I assumed it was just an irrelevant alteration, but you've now pinned your entire argument on the very specific semantics of the quote that you made up.

Actually, no I haven't and will deal with that BS later, after work, but for now, still feel like ignoring the whole "mechanic that is a literary device in rule form" somehow not being a narrative mechanic?

Quote from: CRKrueger;889893Actually, no I haven't and will deal with that BS later, after work, but for now, still feel like ignoring the whole "mechanic that is a literary device in rule form" somehow not being a narrative mechanic?

I categorically reject your assertion that any game which includes character creation and advancement mechanics which grant a player the ability to make up details about their character's skill set and/or background is a "narrative game".

Your argument that anything which looks superficially like a "literary device" is a narrative mechanic is also prima facie absurd. This is primarily because that term is apparently much broader than you think it is. (For example, anthropomorphism is a literary device. So is bildungsroman. I'm unconvinced that animate object spells and "zero to hero" experience point systems are, therefore, narrative mechanics.)

In the specific case of "deus ex machina", you similarly appear to be applying the term in an overly broad fashion. But even if we accept the overly broad definition of "I happen to have a skill which is relevant to the situation I currently find myself in, although that in no way guarantees my success at this particular task" as being a deus ex machina, I'd still be unconvinced that the mechanic is a narrative mechanic as a result.

Is there any game at all, that you like and play, that you consider an RPG, that does have a mechanic you call narrative?

Quote from: CRKrueger;890159Is there any game at all, that you like and play, that you consider an RPG, that does have a mechanic you call narrative?

Well, there's Numenera. As I said in Post #17 of this thread, GM Intrusions can be used as a narrative control mechanic:

Quote from: Justin Alexander;888958The cool thing about GM Intrusions is that they're an amazingly versatile tool for the GM.

One of the many things you can do with them (if you want to) is to give your players any degree of narrative control that you want them to have. But if you don't like your players to have narrative control? Just don't use GM Instrusions in that way. Ta-da!

I walk about this at more length in the Art of GM Instrusions.

And action point mechanics (like Numenera's "spend 1 XP for a reroll" mechanic) are a pretty ubiquitous example of a narrative control mechanic that can be found in many games that I would classify as an RPG.

Quote from: CRKrueger;890159Is there any game at all, that you like and play, that you consider an RPG, that does have a mechanic you call narrative?

For me, the answer is obviously no.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;888146My perspective is just about the opposite of this. I find the Numenera setting intriguing, but I find the Cypher system obnoxious.

This is how I feel.

Gonna pass on this one unless my players really get a serious radioactive bug up their collective asses and press me on it. And I seriously doubt that will happen considering all the other juicy stuff out there.

I backed The Strange and spent way more on the end product than I expected to, so no more purchases from Money Cook. That said I like the fluff of the setting and the fact I can probably adapt some of it to D&D.