Hi Nick,
> I dont think anyone is suggesting there is a 'right' way. I am sold on
> the whole narrativist thing but remain firmly of the opinion that not
> only is it not 'the right' way to play its not even 'a better' way to
> play. Its just a great way to play.
I'm completely right there with you. Exactly.
> 'Missed opportunity' is exactly the point. However it is currently
> very hard to point anyone at a coherant explanation of how to prepare
> and play in a narrativist style.
I wouldn't say so, there's quite a few examples, I'll even list them in "newbie-friendliness": Primetime Adventures, Dust Devils, Inspectres, Dogs in the Vineyard, The Shadow of Yesterday, Nine Worlds, Sorcerer & Sword + Sorcerer's Soul.
Many of these have excellent and explicit directions for setting up conflicts without predetermining tons of events and outcomes.
> Nor has this recent touchy feely arty
> narrativist stuff originated with Issaries anyway, so there is no
> reason to expect them to have built examples round it.
And, actually, this "recent" arty stuff goes back all the way to some adventures for Tunnels and Trolls... Goes back to making your myths and themes as a group, before, or during play, even for some folks playing RQ. Naming it narrativism may be recent- but the style of play has been there a long time. Mostly people shoveled it under improv or freeform without looking at the actual beast itself :)
But yeah, its that lack of examination into alternate methods of running stuff that is the cause of the lack of documentation on it. Most people just chalk it up to, "And then at some point you learn to improvise" and don't look at what they are doing when they do so, and it also never occurs to many people that you don't need to follow the path of "highly railroaded-mostly railroaded-not really railroaded- improv" and can actually choose to work with any of those methods at any point- provided you know the key methods of play.
Chris
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