On 17 February 2010 00:49, Matthew Cole <matthew.cole_at_...> wrote:
> We decide what to narrate based on the resistance that our story obstacle is
> to present to the heroes.
...and the needs of verisimilitude. Throwing dramatically varying
resistances out of the window does IMO less harm to narrative then
breaking verisimilitude. (I don't think you're contradicting this,
though.)
> It is really important that our players come to trust that what we narrate
> is what their heroes are up against and not fear some hidden numerical
> mystery 'stick'. Also vital is that our story retains its coherence -
> changes in narration can risk damage to that.
*Strong* agreement.
> So we wanted a higher resistance but our narration didn't cut the mustard?
> We should change the resistance, admitting that this was the mistake and
> chalk it up to experience. We can learn better narration with practise and
Absolutely.
> I see discussion around the directly related topic of "narrating the
> resistance chosen". So my story needs a very high resistance here - how do I
> narrate that?
Some thoughts:
- You can't narrate a resistance before you know what the characters
are going to do. If you know they're going to covertly enter the
sultan's palace you can describe it in a way that makes some of the
obvious approaches appear hard but somewhat feasible. There is no way
you can narrate the resistance to a clever tactic before you know they
are thinking about it -- and sometimes players will latch onto
something you've already said and cook up a clever tactic based on it:
and then verisimilitude becomes more important than the story based
resistance, IMO.
- The pass/fail cycle is golden here: clever tactics were rewarded and
instead of sneaking past the guard (Very Hard) they went over the wall
(Easy). Since the test was a success, the next narratively directed
resistance remains as Very Hard. If they're clever the next time as
well... well, good for them -- the notional resistance remains Very
Hard! No breaks for the clever people. :)
- If you narrate a scene with a notional Very Hard resistance, and
players propose a course of action that circumvents that trivially,
then you can introduce a complication that ramps up the difficulty to
what you think it should be. This doesn't mean springing an unfair
surprise, but rather gradual unveiling of the scene.
- A variation on the above is adjusting the perceived difficulty
through additional details. If the players seem to think something is
a lot easier than you think, then instead of going to the dice
immediately, you can narrate a segment that underlines the difficulty
of the proposed course of action and give the players the option to
reconsider. Not a new complication, just more details on the existing
problem. Same technique can be used to make things seem easier than
they at first appeared as well.
- Sometimes the mismatch between your intended narration and players
perception is best solved by talking it out -- sometimes right then,
but more often than not after the game. Maybe you've told them
something earlier that they have totally misconstrued? Maybe they have
a different perception on how difficult scaling a sheer wall should be
in the genre you're playing? Only bringing it up and talking about it
can fix these issues.
Always using the same tactic to deal with narrative/resistance
mismatches seems suboptimal to me. Much better to have multiple tools
at your disposal, and use whatever seems like the best match at the
moment.
Being strict about notional resistance in a scene is pretty
illusionistic. That's not to say it is a bad thing, just that there
are implications to consider: players may be frustrated if they learn
that no matter what they do, the mechanical resistance against them
is the same. Properly used this allows characters to solve situations
in a manner that highlights their personalities and abilities.
Carelessly used this can destroy the interface between the mechanics
and narrative, rendering differences between abilities meaningless by
encouraging players to just choose the highest rated ability they have
that is credible for the task at hand.
Cheers,