Tweaking Gamist Texts to facilitate Narrativism
Simon C:
This is not my area of expertise, but here are a few links that you might find inspiring for ideas:
Some people have had success using "Keys" from The Shadow of Yesterday in D&D. Clinton Nixon wrote up some rules for this here: http://files.crngames.com/cc/sweet20/experience.html.
Otherwise, I had an idea for using the dungeon crawl as a self-contained conflict resolution system, which I wrote about here: http://simoncarryer.googlepages.com/sayyesorfacethedungeon.
Ryan Stoughton wrote a hack for 3rd ed. D&D (but totally compatible with 4th ed. I believe) called "Raising the Stakes", which while it's not a magic wand for Narrativism, might make the game more interesting for you. You can download the pdf here: http://esix.pbwiki.com/f/RaisingtheStakes.pdf
Ron Edwards:
Hi Jim,
Have you seen my series of threads about playing D&D 3.0/3.5 for dedicated Narrativist play? Rather than direct you to them, as they are pretty extensive and include about a bezillion reader-driven crisis points, I'll highlight the single most important rules-change we ended up making, without really planning to: we ignored levelling-up.
To be clear about some of the steps involved, before character creation and play, we'd already discussed "why we're playing" and contrasted a pretty specific form of Gamist play (which I think the text supports very well) and a similarly-specific form of Narrativist play, which might be described as violent adventure that raised moral choices and left them open to player decisions. The players unhesitatingly plumped for the latter. So we already knew, going in, that we were dedicated to a certain CA.
In other words, and consistent with what you're talking about so far (I think), our game wasn't about tricking or converting people to Narrativist play under cover of D&D; it was simply enjoying this set of rules (or subset, given the "guts cut out" impact of not levelling-up) for the already-desired CA.
Best, Ron
P.S. Two interesting threads, among many at the Forge that kick around D&D, mechanics options or alterations, and Narrativist play:
"Save vs. X": Gamist? (the answer being, "not necessarily")
Narrativist game compatible with D&D settings (almost certainly a troll-in-disguise topic, but there are some good posts in the replies)
Narrativist games and "winning?" (during Frank's phase of 'the Big Model fascinates me but I must struggle with it,' which as it turns out was good for everybody)
P.P.S. Let me know if you want to delve into the multi-thread saga of the D&D game; I'll hunt the links.
Ron Edwards:
You know, I thought about that post a bit more and decided to clarify something.
I'm not saying that if you take levelling-up out of D&D, you get a Narrativist game in the sense that everyone playing flips a switch in their heads from one CA to another.
I'm saying that if you go in playing Narrativist by preference, and given that we didn't plan to play more than a single several-session adventure anyway, then levelling-up (in our case) just evaporated from the context of play.
So I'm not sure whether that really serves your topic, except perhaps to say that the "tweaking texts" part is not the first-cause priority in what you're talking about. It's best to start with people who really want to play Narrativist in the first place.
Best, Ron
JB:
Thanks to everyone who's posted so far. And thanks for the links. I'd been looking for the Raising the Stakes thing as it was referenced elsewhere without a line a while back.
Ron,
I don't think I've read your series of D&D 3.0/3.5 for dedicated Narrativist play yet. I'm game to delve into the threads if you're game to hunt the links. I'm slowly working my way thru the Forge forum archives, and have about gotten thru the RPG Theory archives, but the main reference to doing this I've read so far is the series of posts Raven (grayorm) put up about his 3X game - I think that starts with 'Non-Silly D&D'?
And yeah, I'm not trying to trick anyone into playing Narrativist or change their CA. I just don't feel like I need advice on 'adapting D&D' to play with a Gamist CA and the groups I'm playing with already have a functional style of Sim play. (Not exactly my cup of tea, but I doubt I'd come up with anything superior in that sphere.)
The analogy that struck me last night was, "It's like trying to explain how to play a different genre of music to someone who's never heard that kind of music." I can talk about 'modal jazz' or whatever but the only way to 'get it' is to or hear it, or play it.
To extend that analogy, I've met a group that plays... I dunno, jazz... and then I sit in a few times and say, "Y'all want to play some Rock n Roll?" They're interested but have never heard RnR. I assert that I can talk about RnR but the only way to 'get it' is to play or hear it. And the group says, "Cool. Sounds interesting. But I don't want to have to buy a different instrument and learn to play that to play this Rock stuff. Can we do this with the instruments we have now?" My take is that, yeah, we can do that. Maybe it's not ideal, but if you enjoy it maybe you'll decide to get another instrument later on.
Ron Edwards:
Found'em. Things have lightened up a lot about since the days of (sniff!) "No way, man, D&D rules, at least it did the way Scott used to run it," et cetera et cetera.
[D&D 3.0/3.5] The kid two houses down
[D&D 3.0/3.5] Skill combat and blood drinking
[D&D 3.0/3.5] Spells and swords - fight!
[D&D 3.0/3.5] Undead, real dead
[D&D 3.0/3.5] At long last, a dungeon
Still, even in these, there are a few aggrieved defenses of various rules that I either misplayed or stated in a fashion that matched the text rather than whatever it was the person held in his head. Aside from that, I'm really happy with how these threads created a new knowledge-base that "wow, people at the Forge play D&D too?"
Best, Ron
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