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What is "narrative gaming"


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Narrative play is an excellent way to make the hobby fun  - giving both players a chance to care about the outcome of a battle without it being solely about winning or losing. (Don't get me wrong - competitive games are great, but they're not the only way that the hobby is enjoyable. If I just wanted to pit my wits against someone and win or lose, I'd play chess).   However the game still needs to have an unpredictable element, in order to maintain the narrative suspense.

For example, I recently set up  a scenario for a campaign I'm running in my local group where a Khorne army was trying to breach a fortified gate in order to enter the campaign and realm of play. We wrote some rules whereby the Khorne armies couldn't climb the walls of the gatehouse until they'd taken a certain number of casualties (i.e. they had to literally climb the piles of bodies to reach the top, which seemed suitably in character).  However, the Khorne army had unlimited waves of models - the defenders were just trying to buy enough time to seal the gate.  Similarly, some of the doors in the fortress were deemed wide enough only to admit one model at a time - leading to some more balanced combats between chaos champions and phalanxes of defenders. My opponent also limited his list picks to units he felt were appropriate to the narrative, and sent models into battle in an order that was more characterful than good for tactics. 

After an epic battle, the game literally came down to the last dice roll - if a 5+ save came up, the gate was held. If it failed, the defences had fallen. It came up. I've never seen two people care as much about the result of a save roll -  and, better still, it wasn't a positive or negative result. Instead, it reshaped completely the plans we had for future battles: instead of Chaos pouring into the realm (as we'd both expected!) we had to decide if the Khorne player would take up a new army - or if the defenders would pursue the defeated Khorne forces into the realm from which they'd come. 

It is a challenge to mess too much with the carefully tested lists/scenarios in the GHB in order to create games that fit your narrative but still produced balanced, or at least unpredictable, results. In addition, it's hard to rely on players in tournaments to bring a list that fits the theme rather than be competitive - it only takes one player to break ranks and disrupt the game. Hence it may be the best option for all players to bring competitive lists  as that way you can be 100% sure it's balanced, and then fit the narrative around them. The tournaments that have non-standard lists work hard to make their rules support this type of gaming - I'm particularly looking forward to RAW18 and Fate of Sigmar. 

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3 minutes ago, DionTheWanderer said:

I'll PM you the rules/report if you like. It was one of the most fun games I've had since restarting the hobby!

That would be ace! I'm busy building a large fortress at the moment and also creating some seige rules as I'm not really content with anything GW has put out so far for such games in AoS, other fan input gets too complex though.... Want to strike a balance for mine. 

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6 hours ago, 123lac said:

If you've ever played something like Starcraft or Warcraft there is a campaign with a story and then there is straight up multiplayer.

Narrative play is like playing the campaign, but with another person.

Don't forget actual warhammer video games! Man Dawn of War has some of the best scenes and smack talks between races. A real shame that Dawn of War 3 was a terrible experiment in appealing to competitive moba players.

 

 

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31 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

Don't forget actual warhammer video games! Man Dawn of War has some of the best scenes and smack talks between races. A real shame that Dawn of War 3 was a terrible experiment in appealing to competitive moba players.

 

 

DoW 3 killed the franchise. There is only one rts developer who could get 40k right now. Eugen systems who makes the Wargame series and has the biggest rts maps ever 10 v10 mayhem maps lol. Although there are smaller ones for more tactical and smart play. They however have shown no interest in making any non-historical rts game. :( Other than that maybe if the total war devs gave it a shot but I don't know. 

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Thanks for the responses.  It seems the majority are saying narrative gaming means something different to each person but in the context of an event, you can figure it will run with the same powered army lists, just with different scenarios.

We have a player on our discord saying narrative events also mean not taking the most powerful lists and wanting to run a narrative event, but couldn't really explain what narrative gaming was other than to him it was a story and then restricting army choices.  I think he would be better served doing that in private as a public event will likely stress him out with people bringing their tournament lists.

Thanks for the discussion.

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As someone who isn't a big fan of matched play as a "default" way to create a "fair" game, I've been trying to develop battleplans that use lore-related elements or story-driven mechanisms to somewhat inherently "balance" the game. This summer I had taken my still-growing Seraphon force against my friend's extremely extensive Skaven army, using a custom battleplan that I created (based largely on one from the Seraphon battletome). The restrictions on the army were part of the battleplan, and my opponent had a very Skaven approach to how his reinforcements would arrive. I lost because I left room for a Skitterleaping Verminlord to assassinate my Slann, but we both had a great time and never even bothered stopping to think about balance or whether the points were even -- we were telling a story together.

If you haven't tried gaming like this yet, I would give it my highest possible recommendation! It's definitely a lot of effort to create a custom battleplan, but I found it well worth the effort in the end.

Seraphon vs Skaven Infiltrating the Temple.pdf

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1 hour ago, Kramer said:

Don’t think I understand you correctly. But you know about total war: warhammer right? 

Oh I meant a 40k game sorry lol. I know they did total war, but they are two very different types of strategy games. Total War the series has always been about formations and tactics while 40k is more modern in style of combat and I don't know if the TW devs can pull it off. 

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1 hour ago, Dead Scribe said:

We have a player on our discord saying narrative events also mean not taking the most powerful lists and wanting to run a narrative event, but couldn't really explain what narrative gaming was other than to him it was a story and then restricting army choices.  I think he would be better served doing that in private as a public event will likely stress him out with people bringing their tournament lists.

This is something said by people who don't narrative game, and it's not always true.

The only limitation for army building is the narrative and how much you want to match it:

Playing a Force looking to terrorize civilians? I can't see why Chaos Warriors and Orcs couldn't fight alongside each other.

Playing a ragtag troop of Freeguild deep in enemy territory? No, I don't believe they would be able to sneak that Hurricanum in.

Playing Archaon during a siege of Azyr? Bring the Cheese. All of the Cheese.

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There are also times when Narrative/Fluff actually needs to step in and rein in matched play! 8th 40k had some of this happen, like all those silly Flyer Only armies so they had to make the Boots on the Ground rule. Or the "3 limit" rule to prevent someone showing up with 7 flying hive tyrants.

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38 minutes ago, SuperHappyTime said:

This is something said by people who don't narrative game, and it's not always true.

The only limitation for army building is the narrative and how much you want to match it:

Playing a Force looking to terrorize civilians? I can't see why Chaos Warriors and Orcs couldn't fight alongside each other.

Playing a ragtag troop of Freeguild deep in enemy territory? No, I don't believe they would be able to sneak that Hurricanum in.

Playing Archaon during a siege of Azyr? Bring the Cheese. All of the Cheese.

This. Each to their own ofc, but I personally get irked by the fact that stupendous legendary heroes seem to tackle every two bit sheep rustling raid skirmish personally! 

1500 points of scrawny freeguild enter a graveyard? Here comes Nagash!! 

A small band of orcs raid a village? Unleash  the  local peasantry's battery of cannon and warmachines. 

Just like the best fantasy novels, there is a skill to making the fantastical feel believable and "lived in". 

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Narrative gaming can not be defined by anything as simple as 'well, its X without the Y, but with more Z'.

There are countless ways to play narrative AoS.  Just a few examples would be:
 

  • Playing with Highly competitive lists & rules but with games and match ups set around a story/theme
  • Chucking everything on the table and having a royal rumble
  • Simply giving your heroes and units names and recording their victories, even as far as to model trophies
  • ignoring standard army composition to build a themed forced
  • Creating a whole new race/force never before seen
  • Playing fast and loose with the rules to tell a cinematic story, rather than be bogged down with rulebooks and dice rolls

There are as many ways to play narrative as there are players. The way you play your narrative game may never be played that way by anyone again. You can go deep in to RPG style rules and have dice rolls and stats for every single little action or you can go so fast and loose with the rules that you decide what you would like to do and simple roll to see if it succeeds, making your stats up on the spot. 

I use the rule structure of the core rules but when I play I'm happy to drop rules and stats at a moments notice to keep the flow of the story going. I've no interest in pitting two equally matched forces against each other. When has there ever two equally matched forces in any war film- there always has to be an underdog!

99% of my game is all played out before the minis even hit the table, while at my painting desk.
                                                         

My current narrative campaign is the tale of the Mek Grots rise to power on the Winter Islands, three barren islands that are physically cut off from the 'main' realms, set against the back drop of the Empire Secundus- the insane plan of a Freeguild Count and inventor, who spent too many years collecting many dusty old tomes and relics from the old world and is now trying to recreate the lands and borders of the old empire states.

His technological advancements lead to a creation of a Cog formation that can take a small mechanical cog device and use it to power a much, much larger copy of itself. This has lead from having cogforts, to gargantuan Cogstate cities that 'walk' the paths of trade routes of stationary state structures. Unknown to them, the skaven have spent many years stealing and recycling these cog formations that have been thrown out (they wear down quickly but are cheap and easy to replace) and have been creating their own megastructures, directly below these new states, ready to try their hand at conquest again.

A side story of a small host of stormcast that have had to hire the services the Dark Kharadron and their warships to clear out a cult of death, which have situated themselves on an otherwise unreachable mountain range. The Dark Kharadron, with no real love for humans, are happy to be hired  as the stormcast pay well and gives them the chance to test out their new mountain defence line against the local dragon population- many of which have ties to stormcast allies (Having the stormcast along side them means there will be no repercussion from the killing of these dragons, as the stormcast would be killed alongside them when the dragons attack) The wiping out of the deathcult will also give the overlords more human skulls for their collection, which also pleases them! 


Most of these story lines wouldn't be possible with matched play rules or points. Many of the larger battles will be so abstract that even the rules as they are will be of no good. I'm most looking forward too seeing all our dragons (finally!) painted and lined up ready to try out the aerial fight rules. I will probably even make some custom mountain terrain just for that game alone. To me, narrative gaming gives a whole lot more to the hobby than just painting up one force and fighting another equally balanced fighting force.

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Sometimes, at least in 40k, it’s also recreating historical events, like the burning of Prospero and seeing if you can change history like an alternate timeline. What if Magnus won and confronted the Emperor about it but they discussed it and it was all a misunderstanding once he found out Horus interfered, etc... then you play out that whole scenario and what if’s. 

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Over the weekend we had a group discussion trying to decide what a narrative event should be but no one could agree, so we'll just stick with tournament gaming.  Everyone can agree what constitutes tournament gaming; bringing your best list and doing everything in the game's rules to achieve victory.

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3 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Over the weekend we had a group discussion trying to decide what a narrative event should be but no one could agree, so we'll just stick with tournament gaming.  Everyone can agree what constitutes tournament gaming; bringing your best list and doing everything in the game's rules to achieve victory.

I feel that from an "event" viewpoint, standard matched play is far and away the easiest to get consensus on. Unless you've got one person who'll take the reins to create the narrative, I can see how it'd be nearly impossible to get agreement.

It's great to hear that your group, which is essentially matched-play-only, considered a narrative event. Keep that open mind!

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23 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Over the weekend we had a group discussion trying to decide what a narrative event should be but no one could agree, so we'll just stick with tournament gaming.  Everyone can agree what constitutes tournament gaming; bringing your best list and doing everything in the game's rules to achieve victory.

It's playing out a story - I'm attending a narrative event next year whereby we have assigned armies and created lists to reflect the stories and characters that reflect the story we want to tell with no considerations to building a competitive list.

I appreciate the thread you have created and being open for discussion @Dead Scribe however I can't help but feel that you are almost trying to disprove its existence or at least make out that there isn't much of a difference. 

For the sake of elaborating my point - For next year we have written a background story for our army as the starting point. Some people's armies don't meet the 'list building requirements' (i.e. an army of heroes), as again the whole point is to play a part in a story, with irrelevance being given to what is a 'good list'.

These battles will then shape the story and dictate the next part in the story and which conflicts will next take place.

So I have therefore listed 2 main differences to Competitive Gaming: 

1) List building is may not considered for coherency, legality or strength but instead for what is good for the story.

2) As the name would suggest, there is a greater narrative backdrop - i.e. I am facing you because of these conflicts that have arisen in the story, not because you are my next draw in the tournament list.

It isn't as simplistic as 'restricted lists' or 'sub-optimal' lists or a more 'relaxed' version of competitive;

it is an investment into the lore and role play aspects of AoS. Rather than them just being models that play a role in a strategic battle game, they are mighty characters and armies acting out a story or event in the rich backdrop of the mortal realms.

Hope this helps highlight some of the differences between competitive gaming and narrative because they are pretty big.

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I posted the thread because in our group we have someone that was interested in doing it, we can't figure out what it is, the book describes what a narrative is but not what a narrative event really looks like, and so when I took to the internet to search out what narrative events were and found some examples like the NOVA or Adepticon narrative event, they were basically still tournaments with the difference being they had non standard missions, but the list building was still tournament list building so wanted some other examples to compare against.

I see that it isn't really about list building, though our player that wants to do narrative doesn't want us to bring tournament lists because he thinks narrative games are supposed to be more fun and less competitive (we all disagreed and can't find an example where that is true out in the world either).  

You can be invested in the lore and narrative and come up with a story for your list and still keep your list competent and optimized, from what I've seen.  

But now we just don't see the difference between writing a story for our army and continuing down the tournament path with that backstory or doing some kind of narrative event, when the game play and lists etc seem to basically be the same with different scenarios.

I think trying different scenarios would be fun so long as they aren't about ****** one side over really bad.  I've done some research and there are a lot of other scenarios published that aren't too bad in terms of skew so we will try that at least but with our standard tournament armies.

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