That Greg can sometimes do narrativist play right doesn't mean that he cannot also sometimes do it wrong. And yes, Robin does a good job, and you can do narrativist play well within the HQ rules (and hopefully even better within the HQ2 rules), its just that much of the supplied support material for HQ has the effect of dragging the game away from narrativism and towards a more simulationist style of play (and material written by Greg is particularly likely to do this). And the HQ rules began gradually drifting away from a fairly pure narrativist approach pretty much the minute they left Robins hands, and support for narrativist style play with inconsistent and confusing thereafter.
Check out Gregs contribution Gathering Thunder, the Sky Ship, for example. The story charges on, with the players getting plenty of opportunity to check things out, do the wrong thing and get killed, or exist the story by accident - but no opportunity to change anything. It can't really be called narrativist in any meaningful sense. There is a narrative, and all but the small details of it are rigidly set before the scenario starts by the author, Greg. Calling it simulationist is kind - mostly, its what the Forge tends to refer to as illusionist, with player choice being minimal or illusionary, the scenario charges on just like the titular boat, with passengers making little difference to the outcome.
Compare that with Rons scenario in the same book, which sets up a few scenarios that explore the themes of the scenario, but offers many options as to how the players might react and interact with that theme, and no set ending for the story.
>
>> 2) Glorantha is probably pretty poorly suited to narrative play. A
>core idea of narrativist play (in the Forge version) is that the
>players provide the narrative. <
>
>You can't have read the Forge much. The key idea of narrativist play
>is that it addresses a premise. Some folks point out that it might
>more correctly be called issuist or themist. Looking for a premise?
>HQ1 is chock full of them. The Old World is Over...
My point is that the style of play that already provides "the
story" is not narrativist.
To quote Rons narrativism essay
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html
>There cannot be any "the story" during Narrativist play, because to
>have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the
>whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s).
And HQ support material is continually bombarding the reader with fixed plots and pre-agreed themes. A good player can easily sift through this barrage, find a few contrasting themes that address the issue, take a bit of background story that works as a backdrop for the story they want to create, and start coming up with a nice bit of theme. Start with a nice premise like 'how can killing to save lives make sense?', drop your characters in the backdrop of a major battle, grab a few major archetypes that address the theme differently (Humakt, Orlanthi, Heler, Urox, Chalana Arroy, etc), and offer your characters choices that address the premise. Of course, few of the published scenarios encourage this, but its certainly very doable within the system.
But it is just as likely that the overall plot to handily provided in the scenario. The big story provided by Gloranthan history becomes not backdrop, but the plot of the scenario that the players are dragged along by. The myths become plot restrictions for provided heroqests, rather than suggestions for ways in which to approach the premise. Cults become rigid roles. The new player is bombarded with enough info on how they should be playing that it is often difficult for them to see the differing approaches to premise offered by various myths, cults, etc as a smorgasbord of suggested choices.
HeroQuests themselves are nice little bundles of fairly rigidly set plot and theme, intrinsic to Glorantha. When given to beginners, they too often end up into a fairly rigidly railroaded scenario -- not a bad thing for players new to Glorantha, and a great idea back in the dawn of gaming (when the alternative was usually a scenario with a railroaded rigidly set plot, and no discernable sense of theme beyond essentially the aesthetics of antagonist and setting). HeroQuests are cool. But when the scenario already tells you what HeroQuest you are doing, it is generally simulationist play with a strong sense of narrative rather than narrativist play.
For my money, that is essentially the issue with heroQuest - there is no real distinction made between simulationist play with a strong sense of narrative, and narrativist play. The game supports both nicely, and the support material trends heavily towards the former.
>
>>Get a gaming group who are all Glorantha experts, and narrativist
>>campaigns can be awesome<
>
>Actually we would say that their is far more of a need to appreciate
>storytelling games and be open minded about them. Most of our
>players in the last 3 years have had no knowledge of Glorantha.
I think you are probably right there too.
>The arch-Forgite and champion of Hero Wars Ron Edwards documented
>the narrativist game he successfully ran with newbies on the forge.
True, I had forgotten Rons HQ games.
> >This is pretty much completely at odds with the Forge version,
>which is where the narrative is supplied by the players themselves,
>not the external world.<
>
>Published scenarios were in many cases linear, certainly. I
My point exactly. Set story, set theme, players are essentially deciding how well they perform a set range of tasks. Yes, you can play great narrativist HQ - but if you read the published material, it seems to be the exception rather than the rule, and much of the material tends to discourage it.
>Frankly, your argument is so riddled with holes that if it were a
>boat it would have sunk at sea drowning everyone aboard. Run
>screaming passengers from captain David Cake.
Are you trying to make some sort of bizarre David Boatwright joke? Because we certainly encourage making Boatie jokes.
Cheers
David
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