{"id":33778,"date":"2016-08-20T15:06:57","date_gmt":"2016-08-20T19:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=33778"},"modified":"2016-08-20T15:06:57","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T19:06:57","slug":"rutskarns-gminars-ch6-storytelling-games-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=33778","title":{"rendered":"Rutskarn’s GMinars CH6: Storytelling Games, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

So much of learning to run games is about building confidence in your own abilities. My primary goal is to make you assertive, relaxed, and comfortable when sitting behind the screen and your players feel the same way sitting in front of it. Nine times out of ten, a game like Dungeons and Dragons <\/em>is a good place to start building that feeling. This article is to help you figure out if you’re one of those nine or if there might be greener pastures.<\/p>\n

There’s something unusual, risky, even a little perverse in skipping traditional games and going straight to storytelling-heavy games; almost nobody starts out that way. You’re supposed to join a D&D<\/em> group, play for a year or two, then somebody doesn’t show up–the GM brings out some crusty old paperback joke game he picked up at a convention in 1998 because it had an anime babe on the cover, and with a shared look of dread and suspicion you all agree to play–a lot of six-sided dice are rolled and “wacky” charts are consulted–you have a decent time and everyone agrees, in spite of themselves, that this was a good change of pace–later you hear somebody’s running another one-shot game, and remembering the decent time you had with the last one you show up to find they’re running something Google-translated from a Norwegian subreddit whose title translates to “Hope is Not Always Lost in the Valley of the Giants” that uses “Hope” and “Hopelessness” as its only two stats and is designed to be played for exactly forty-eight minutes at a stretch, ending according to the rules with the death of every single player character–you play it, you have another <\/em>surprisingly good time, and you think to yourself that if you can enjoy this you should probably be playing more of these things.<\/p>\n

I think part of the reason people follow this trajectory is that storytelling games, which are usually abstract and experimental and meant to be self-contained sessions, are forbidding–neither intrinsically appealing nor easy to get into. Like foreign art films or hoppy beers, they’re poor ambassadors because they’re usually directed toward acquired palates and have to be experienced very actively. But for the right kind of person, they might inspire a lot more interest and eagerness as a first exposure than The Avengers <\/em>or a St. Pauli Girl <\/em>would.<\/p>\n

So instead of offering a blanket recommendation or non-recommendation, let me break down what story games are and why they’re difficult.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Intro to Story and Mechanics<\/b><\/h2>\n

At some very early point in RPG history, designers with a little introspection twigged that designing their games to be more realistic simulations of reality was not only a dead-end street, but sort of pointless. Even if the developers understood every physical principle perfectly, even if they made rules that spelled out every action and its consequences, they couldn’t ensure their games were realistic because they weren’t the ones telling the story.<\/em> That responsibility fell to the GM and the players.<\/p>\n

For designers obsessed with realism, it was a rude shock to learn that you can flawlessly reproduce medieval martial arts over a dozen painstaking design sessions, only to hand it to a bombastic group where the DM narrates exploding goblins and Elvis-impersonating orcs and chainmail loincloths and wild overhanded swings. The only difference you made as a designer is that whenever the players’ crew of wisecracking, 80s-movie-referencing, named-after-Sailor Scouts rowdy punks run into a combat, they’ll suddenly turn into Seal Team Six. Because when they don’t fight soberly and carefully they end up with a pile of dead characters and that stopped being funny after the sixth or seventh session.<\/p>\n

In other words, you can only affect how the story is told by affecting what play is effective, allowed, or most fun. <\/em>In an ideal system, one should make the desired storytelling the most effective and most fun option at all times. Games like FATE Core<\/em> and 4th Edition D&D <\/em>get a lot of flak for obsessively balancing all available options, but for all that they sacrifice they achieve their intended effect; you don’t have to choose between what you want to play and what’s going to be useful in the mechanics. Constantly having to choose between good and appealing is probably the biggest indication a game’s design is flawed.*<\/strong><\/p>\n

So what’s the difference between a traditional game and a “story game,” as I’ve sort of lazily generalized it? Loosely, it’s this: a traditional game mechanically outlines actions and effects, while a storytelling game mechanically suggests<\/em> actions and effects. This explains absolutely nothing, so let me skip to the concrete examples.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong>Within reason. This is a whole essay’s worth of material and probably not germane to this series.<\/em><\/p>\n

Traditional Systems<\/h2>\n

Let’s say I’m playing Bastard Swords and Scanty Mail.<\/em> It’s the latest traditional RPG from Dead Kobold Press, <\/em>and every player here has a glossy hardback Playa’s Handbook<\/em>. <\/em><\/p>\n

My knight, Sir Hillock, is presented with a mob of peasants angry that my thong is scaring their cattle. “What do you do?” asks the GM, as a formality. The miniatures are already on the board. She’s already calculating initiative to figure out definitively who goes first.<\/p>\n

Well–the rules of BS&SM <\/em>are pretty simple. I can declare an attack. I have a longsword, which I chose from a list of weapons because it has the highest defense die. I’m a knight, which I chose from a list of jobs because my martial discipline gives me +1 on all attacks. It’s my turn, so I attack first.<\/p>\n

“I swing at the first peasant?” That was easy. I rolled high, so I hit; I rolled a lot of damage, so I hit very well; the first peasant has a low amount of hit points, so he dies.<\/p>\n

As a player, this was all pretty easy for me to figure out. The rules spell out very clearly what I can do and what the effect is, and so the storytelling naturally fills in the cracks–I swung my sword real good<\/em>, I hit real good, <\/em>and the peasant died real hard. <\/em>We don’t have to stretch our imaginations very far to narrate my sword swing or the peasant’s spraying neck wound, and if we don’t feel up to it at all for some reason, that’s fine–the rolls told a story all by themselves, and the drama of each to-hit and damage roll was fun for everyone to watch. By far the trickiest part was keeping track of all of the numbers, but I have a sheet where I can fill in all of the boxes and I can always ask for help if I need it.<\/p>\n

Now, there’s also large sections of BS&SM <\/em>where I’m not cleaving poor oppressed farmers in twain–where I’m buying drinks, or riding across the countryside, or trying to score a new codpiece–but even in these situations, I can relax. While the game allows <\/em>a lot of improvisation on my part–it doesn’t stop me from doing something the designers never predicted, like jumping up on a table and farting a lullaby–it doesn’t require it. More importantly, if I do decide to do something crazy, I have some reasonable assurance that the rules will help me figure out how well I did it and what happens afterward. This actually emboldens me to take unusual or original action because it takes some of the pressure off me, a slightly shy nerd who doesn’t have any RPG experience, to resolve it.<\/p>\n

For a lot of new players, systems like BS&SM <\/em>are extremely helpful. It guides them over the hump of having to improvise stories, something very few people are naturally good at and even fewer people have occasion to practice. Almost every old-school mainstream game is more or less BS&SM.<\/em><\/p>\n

Storytelling Systems<\/h2>\n

Now we’re playing a different fantasy game called Grind Their Bones<\/em>. From its cryptic and not hugely catchy title, we can confirm this is a Class B Indie RPG. It’s got a lot of inside-referencey buttons on the front cover. Winner of the 2007 Milwaukee Rusty Ork. <\/em>Created at the Bloody Fingers Gamestravaganza! <\/em>Powered by the Rapture(tm)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I port Sir Hillock into the game, that his noble prow might point the way across these foreign waters. Well, I say I’ve ported <\/em>him, but this character sheet, while sort of familiar, is a bit…abbreviated. The old Sir Hillock took up six pages of character sheet plus a stapled piece of notepaper for all the Swordspells I couldn’t fit in the official sheet’s tiny box. My sheet for this game is only one page…actually, it’s more like half a page, because every single stat has a line fully explaining how it works in the game. <\/em>Holy crap. Each of these lines would be a chapter of a game like BS&SM<\/em>. This is going to be way, way easier to play.<\/p>\n

“Sir Hillock is being attacked by peasants again.”<\/p>\n

Okay, so…according to this, when I want to attack, I roll my Aggress dice and compare to the peasants’ dice rolls.<\/p>\n

The GM checks my roll, checks the chart. “You win with a Total Success. The peasants are all going to die and you’re not going to get hurt.”<\/p>\n

Going <\/em>to die? What does that mean, going <\/em>to die? I just killed all of them.<\/p>\n

“Well, yeah, I’m just giving you your guidelines. Sir Hillock, describe how you win this combat.”<\/p>\n

Oh. Oh, that’s <\/em>the catch. By removing all the fiddly tedious sword swings and armor checks and grapple rolls, the game also removes the exciting tactical drama and definite actions and leaves me to…come up with a whole fight on my own. Ouch.<\/p>\n

Although…I’m not totally <\/em>starting from scratch. When I created this character, I had to pick a couple positive and negative adjectives to go next to my Aggress skill. (I chose Bravely, Clumsily, Rashly<\/em> from a list and came up with Sexily <\/em>on my own).<\/em> Now that I’m reading these rules more carefully, I see that whenever I get a Total Success I’m supposed to reference both of my positive adjectives in describing how I win. Hm…<\/p>\n

“I charge forward…boldly, like I’m not even worried. And I guess…that’s scares them so much they don’t even think about counter-attacking?” The GM’s nodding at me. “And then I guess I just start hacking, and yelling, and they don’t stand a chance. Oh, and it rips my tank top so my muscles are showing.”<\/p>\n

“Do they hit you back at all?” asks another player. I didn’t take any damage, so normally the answer would be no<\/em>, but even though there’s no rule suggesting I did or didn’t get hurt I glance down at my adjectives list. Rashly. <\/em>Hm…<\/p>\n

“Yeah…yeah, a little bit. I’m all cut and scratched because if an attack wasn’t going to seriously hurt me I didn’t even bother parrying.”<\/p>\n

For some players, games like these are challenging or boring. They force the player to come up with a lot of material, they don’t provide tactical depth, and they deliver the unspoken pressure of needing to be entertaining<\/em>. I’d argue the average person won’t enjoy a game like this until they’ve been weaned on a more guided, objective system–but for people who just want to tell stories, and are already somewhat confident doing so, this can be a way to skip all the BS and just get to the fun part.<\/p>\n

Full-Blown Story Games<\/h2>\n

The game is called The Last Year of the Gods. <\/em>From its cryptic and seriously uncatchy title, you can conclude this is a Class A Indie RPG. It has no cover because it’s a Word document downloaded from a database of games like this that were at some point posted for free on a forum that no longer exists.<\/p>\n

I decide to play Sir Hillock again. My character sheet is an index card on which I’ve written, “Sir Hillock.”<\/p>\n

The player who is currently <\/em>GM (it will change in exactly ten minutes) looks at me and says, “Tell me what happened when Sir Hillock lost his duel with his rival.”<\/p>\n

I write down “lost a duel with rival” on my character card. Across the table, another player says, “I’ll be the rival.”<\/p>\n

“As in you’ll play my rival for this scene, or as in your character is my rival?”<\/p>\n

“Uh. Oh, I hadn’t even thought of that. Sure, my character will be your rival.”<\/p>\n

We narrate a scene that ends, naturally, in a swordfight. We don’t have to roll to see who wins–we know who wins. The whole point of this scene is that my rival beats my character in a duel. We’ll probably have another duel in a later scene, and according to the rules if we’re not sure how that fight will go–because we can’t figure it out or because we can’t agree–we’ll decide by flipping a coin.<\/p>\n

These games are simultaneously very <\/em>trusting, very <\/em>freeing, and very <\/em>intimidating for newbies. You almost need drama or improv experience to start with a game like this and not feel totally lost. Very few of them are built for telling long-term stories, either–games like this can be boring to play if there’s not a full buildup and release of drama every time, which can be tricky to pull off with the same characters and setting every week.<\/p>\n

NEXT WEEK: FURTHER BREAKDOWN, SUGGESTIONS FOR EACH CATEGORY<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So much of learning to run games is about building confidence in your own abilities. My primary goal is to make you assertive, relaxed, and comfortable when sitting behind the screen and your players feel the same way sitting in front of it. Nine times out of ten, a game like Dungeons and Dragons is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tabletop-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}