What Types of Games Would People Like To See?

Sunny

Narrative focus and narrative system are different things, and you're conflating the two. That's where your confusion is coming from. The framework of a mush allows for narrative roleplay, while mechanical systems used support that in such a way as to provide a shared structure to that narrative. Narrative systems can - and have - been used as that mechanical framework (I used Amber diceless for the best damn game I ever did), but that isn't a requirement to have a narrative focused game.

ETA: I have played, tabletop, a narrative focused Warhammer 40k game. No, I am not joking. It was amazing, and went very well. Lasted a good while, too.

Ominous

@Sunny

At that point, you're trying to unscrew a phillips-head screw with a flathead screwdriver. You can do it, but it's cludgy and a better tool exists. It's like when people use Pathfinder for a narrative heavy campaign and get overwhelmed by all the feats and skills and the +1s and +2s and -5s. Then there's the tabletop miniatures wargame combat that they have to cludge through in the rare instances that combat occurs. They could've used a much more streamlined system that incentivizes and supports more narrative play and resolves combat in a couple of quick rolls or card draws.

Sunny

@Ominous

Nope. It works just fine as a framework depending on what you want to do. Game style and game structure are not the same thing. Just because you don't see how the tool can be applied appropriately does not mean I am trying to hammer a screw.

bored

There's definitely some blurry boundaries as far as terminology goes here. A system is not the same thing as code, for instance.

IE 'Free form' to me does not mean simply a lack of a coded rank structure or economy commands, it means a game with no real systems at all, even diceless ones. I think I agree that politics on those games are pretty pointless, because they tend to run afoul of consent issues or the ultimate arbitration by a single staffer (thus making it not free form in the end). This is more like 'cops and robbers' level stuff with an angry parent eventually coming out and yelling at Tommy that he has to give Johnny a chance to be police captain now, or w/e.

You step up from this to games with minimal in character structures but few or no real established methods (systems) for interacting with those structures, with instead quasi IC/OOC power ultimately invested in a few people (often staff alts) and any 'politicking' really being at their permission. This is where the old Pern games would land.The weyrleader, holder, and guildmaster positions were both IC and OOC power slots that acted as admins while the wizards were rarely involved in the day to day game, and the route to promotion was far more OOC schmoozing than IC anything.

Then you get to games with fairly hard systems for pvp, but maybe not full coded political simulation. Yet these can still have well-defined RP structures (like voting councils etc). I thinks this is where most WoD games fall, as very few really code up complicated status/resource/boon/etc type systems, but most do tend to have heavy player-to-player politicking.

And only after that do you actually start approaching full out political simulation (via code or simply via dice systems), which is very rare. I think the best recent example of this might actually be Star Crusade (did someone mention spreadsheets?!), although obviously Firan and Arx have elements of it. But even Firan was only halfway here (and often closer to the example above) since most political processes were still just RP. Leaders had coded powers, but they weren't selected via code. And we only pulled the spreadsheets out once a year to trade baskets for silk while engaging in the moosepocalypse. (edited as even I was kind of imprecise w/ 'system' vs 'code')

Sunny

On a mush, structure actually tends to encourage freedom and creativity. When people are comfortable that they know exactly what their limits are, they get really comfortable pushing those limits. It might seem counter intuitive, but a heavily structured system lends very well to a narrative game.

Ominous

@Sunny said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

On a mush, structure actually tends to encourage freedom and creativity. When people are comfortable that they know exactly what their limits are, they get really comfortable pushing those limits. It might seem counter intuitive, but a heavily structured system lends very well to a narrative game.

One of Mark Rosewater's favorite sayings is "Restriction breeds creativity."

However, what you just said is exactly what I said at the beginning of this entire tangent - you need mechanics to serve as a framework for politics and intrigue. You need to know what the limits are in order to effectively plot and plan. Can you assassinate your target like Brutus did to Julius Ceasar, in front of a governmental assembly, and get away with it (sort of)? Or do you need to set a bomb in a war room because you're playing a game set in Nazi Germany and your goal is to assassinate Hitler?

Sunny

@Ominous

You asked why people, if they want narrative games, use mechanic heavy systems. They use them because they want the structure for their narrative-focused roleplay. My point is that the level of system structure and the narrative vs gamist scale are not by requirement linked. Because they aren't. It is completely possible and done quite regularly.

Ominous

I'm going to double post to define some of the things I am talking about and give an example. By mechanics and framework, I mean rules that provide internal consistency. Even if these rules are narrative in nature, they're still rules and a framework. "If you walk outside when it is raining, you'll get wet" is a rule and begins to set some framework. When the servants find the dead king in his bed and see wet footprints leading into his bedroom, they know the attacker came into the room from outside the castle on this stormy night. Maybe they can follow the footprints and try to track down the assailant!

Now, you can use freeform play - meaning play that doesn't really care about the rules - to tell a good story. One of the greatest movies of all time did - Star Wars: A New Hope. If it was following the mechanics, things would have played out like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzoeEdW-EDQ&vl=en

However, in the excitement of the movie, fridge logic hasn't taken hold yet and the story works. At least until you get to the fridge after the movie has ended.

Later they fixed this plot hole in the novelization by giving the Death Star a several hour recharge time, so that within the rules it makes sense why they took the 30 minutes to move around Yavin, rather than destroy Yavin and wait a few hours to destroy the rebel base.

It is easier, though, to tell a good, internally consistent story that doesn't fall apart with fridge logic with a nice set of rules. And, when playing a game, having a good, internally consistent set of rules is important to ensure fair play. In the Star Wars movie, the player of the Emperor would have been understandable in his anger that suddenly Yavin couldn't be destroyed for 'reasons', just so there could be a climactic scene.

This also gets to how differing systems can better produce preferred styles of play. George Lucas did not get angry that Yavin couldn't be blown up for 'reasons.' He probably didn't even think about it until someone pointed out the plothole. Why? Because he wasn't /the/ player of Darth Vader or the Emperor. He wasn't personally invested and emotionally connected to those characters over other characters like how people get on MU*s or in Pathfinder. They were just a character in a wide set of characters that he was invested in. Their own personal stories a small subsection of the wider story that he was trying to tell.

Ominous

@Sunny

I did, but it was more of a sidenote than the main discussion.

Derp

@Coin said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Man, I gotta say, I side with @Herja here, pretty hard.
Nothing matters if the players don't care about it. Mechanics, system, all that is there to facilitate or guide the narrative. Some people may only want to play a certain narrative because it uses a certain system or code or whatever, but that doesn't mean that the real value isn't on the narrative. If people don't care about the story, they aren't going to play it, no matter how cool the system is.

Disagree. I've been on games that were basically treated like MUDs, where the only thing people gave a shit about was the system. Interesting character? Not necessary. Don't even pose until it's time to roll and kill things and get xp!

Sunny

@Ominous

It's still what I was responding to, directly. As to your larger point, this one doesn't support that, either. System depth/whatever you want to call it, and narrative focus, are separate things. They are not linked. They are both sliding scales, and both can be at either extreme without disrupting the other. They complement each other, they are both necessary choices to make, but the severity or lack thereof of one does not imply the severity or lack of the other. They aren't the same thing.

Ominous

@Sunny

I didn't say they did. In fact, my example shows you can have strength in one and a lack of the other and be a very good and successful movie. However, it is /easier/, if they're complimentary, and, when it involves a game, it helps reduce butthurt.

Sunny

@Ominous

There is no 'complementary' and 'not-complementary', that's MY point. They go together in any combination based on the priorities of the person putting together the game. None is better or worse or harder or easier in fitting with the other, objectively speaking.

Ominous

@Sunny

We're at an impasse and talking past each other at this point. I suggest we just agree to disagree; otherwise, we're just going to keep going 'nuh-uh' at each other.

Coin

@Derp said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

@Coin said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Man, I gotta say, I side with @Herja here, pretty hard.

Nothing matters if the players don't care about it. Mechanics, system, all that is there to facilitate or guide the narrative. Some people may only want to play a certain narrative because it uses a certain system or code or whatever, but that doesn't mean that the real value isn't on the narrative. If people don't care about the story, they aren't going to play it, no matter how cool the system is.

Disagree. I've been on games that were basically treated like MUDs, where the only thing people gave a shit about was the system. Interesting character? Not necessary. Don't even pose until it's time to roll and kill things and get xp!

Keep reading my further posts and you'll see that I deem that not really RP so much as an OOC game. I mean, it exists, but they are two fundamentally different things that have, for some reason, been conflated in some contexts, which is dumb.

L. B. Heuschkel

@Coin said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Keep reading my further posts and you'll see that I deem that not really RP so much as an OOC game. I mean, it exists, but they are two fundamentally different things that have, for some reason, been conflated in some contexts, which is dumb.

This. Nothing wrong with an advancement focused game set in an interesting game setting, and the focus being on getting stuff, grinding experience, and improving.

To be a roleplaying game, the focus must be on playing the role. Video games marketed as roleplaying games, and for that matter, most MUDs I've played, are not. They let you put on another writer's character for a while, and play either a game of 'can you think like the writer of this mystery' or let you play an advancement game on a pretty backdrop.

Each has their place, each are fun to play, but they aren't interchangeable. But this is of course a hill I'm going to die on quite alone because the term roleplaying game was kidnapped and held for ransom when the first text adventure game came out.

faraday

@Sunny said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

System depth/whatever you want to call it, and narrative focus, are separate things. They are not linked. They are both sliding scales, and both can be at either extreme without disrupting the other. They complement each other, they are both necessary choices to make, but the severity or lack thereof of one does not imply the severity or lack of the other.

I would agree with this. Look at games like Firan and TGG, which had heavy mechanical/system aspects but also heavy narrative aspects. These things are not in any way contradictory.

I'm not sure that I'd call it an "OOC game", as @Coin suggests, because these systems assuredly drive RP. Either in a direct way (posing in-between combat actions) or in an indirect way (doing whatever crafting stuff leads to a RP scene about the shiny new sword you made for someone).

Many MU players are happy to dip in and out of narrative/system as their mood suits them.

@Ominous said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

However, it is /easier/, if they're complimentary

I would agree with this too. If you put people through the grueling effort of Shadowrun chargen, for instance, but then don't let them meaningfully use those stats (i.e. they're only background info for your narrative RP) - that's kind of weird. I think @skew ran into that somewhat on Chontio by using a gear-heavy system (FFG Star Wars) but without a coded component for gear.

I mean, sure you can do this, but you have to be really clear about how and why. Otherwise you'll end up with a clash of expectations.

@Ominous said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

If you're wanting narrative games, why have we not started looking at all of the developments in the past decade with storygames aka Narrativist RPGs?

Some of us have. There have been games using Fate. FS3 was designed with a narrative focus. Ares has some concepts, like the freeform scene system, inspired by freeform PbP/Storium games.

Coin

@faraday said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

I'm not sure that I'd call it an "OOC game", as @Coin suggests, because these systems assuredly drive RP. Either in a direct way (posing in-between combat actions) or in an indirect way (doing whatever crafting stuff leads to a RP scene about the shiny new sword you made for someone).

Many MU players are happy to dip in and out of narrative/system as their mood suits them.

When I say "they are playing an OOC game" I don't mean the game as a whole, I mean that, in that moment, that player is, within their own bubble of context, playing an OOC game. If what drives me is exclusively getting the shiny object or stat, then I'm playing an OOC game. It's not an absolute thing, but rather a fluid thing we can slip in and out of, liek you said, often without even realizing.

The difference is: you can have a game that is purely these "OOC" things (tons of video games, etc, like @L-B-Heuschkel mentioned above) and you can have a game that is purely narrative, without any code beyond something to type in (in the case of online). The difference, IMO, is that the former is not actually roleplaying (despite, again like @L-B-Heuschkel said, the highjacking of the term), and the latter is.

I mean, we can play semantic games all day (not saying we are, just saying we could) about what the word "roleplaying" really means, but that's what it means to me: narrativity, if the characters and story are the point, those two things are enough to make it roleplay (whether you enjoy that barebones type of play or not notwithstanding). If you don't have them, it's not. It's something else that has, for some reason, been conflated into the same term.

L. B. Heuschkel

@Coin I am partial to the term 'interactive novel' for games like Skyrim and similar. You get to decide what part of the plot you want to look at and play with, but you can still only play within the scope of what the game designers wrote down.

Arkandel

@L-B-Heuschkel You can also only read a novel within the scope of what its author wrote down.