What is Narrative?

[Chris Tomlin]

Morning guys,

I recently recorded a podcast with NEO and Narrative supremo Ming Lee (@Thornshield) on the subject of "What is Narrative?".

In many ways it is a selfish piece as it mostly revolves around answering some of my questions and hang ups on the subject, however I'd hope that this may be of interest to others.

Whilst I struggle to get across what I want to say on multiple occasions, Ming is on point and utterly nails it in this episode. I found it hugely interesting and even thought provoking at times.

Check it out if you like, it clocks in under and hour and is clean/family friendly/SFW etc.

Listen via the link below, www.theblacksun.co.uk or search on iTunes.

Enjoy
Chris

 

[Thornshield]

Thanks for having me on Chris.

Would be keen on listeners chiming in with their thoughts here. Do you agree/disagree? Were there areas we didn't cover? Should Ming step down as Narrative Dictator?

[wayniac]

I am listening to this right now.  Great work so far.  

I find too often people are less concerned with a "story" and only focused on the "game".  Like, trying to do anything that isn't evenly matched with symmetrical deployment is lambasted as being "not fair" by the person who seems to be at any sort of disadvantage.

For me, narrative is adding a story to the game, whether as the goal or afterwards or during.  Basically, having a game for any reason other than "You said you wanted to play a game".  I like to name my characters and fluff my army, so as a result I like to when I'm playing with people I know (it's a lot harder with random people) I like to talk about the basic story, similar to what you guys mentioned: Why are our armies fighting, and then play out the game.  I think at its best, narrative is eschewing the restrictions of pitched battles and playing closer to open play, because it fits the story and not caring too much if someone can summon for free or if you play a battleplan where one person starts out surrounded or gets ambushed or similar.

[HadrielCaine]

Really enjoyed listening to this today as I hopped around (tubes sadly not realms).

Good to hear Jervis is still supporting narrative but that the games should be competitive. That's always been my take since back when we did the Inquisitor narrative events at Notts HQ. Although the competition then was to complete objectives not WAAC.

RAW is superb in my opinion and I'm looking forward to working with NEON on Coalescence in London.

I think AoS is specifically written to have narrative elements, regardless of how you play. This point was made clear on the podcast when talking about warscroll battalions, the fluffy Force Organisation is now actually good on the table too. Which I embrace. Its what put me off 40k in the first place and pushed me into WHFB. Could never understand why terminators only had one wound, for example, and how super humans wearing relic armour where only one stat point away from line infantry.

I liked the idea of the Narrative hijack at an event too and was gutted not to make SCGT.

[HobbyHammer]

9 hours ago, Thornshield said:

Should Ming step down as Narrative Dictator?

Yes it is time for the apprentice to become the Sith. Call me Darth Hammerus! 

[HobbyHammer]

In seriousness will give my two cents tomorrow whilst I should be working. 

Good podcast episode though. Agree with most of it ???

[Bostian]

Great show, Chris!

I'm reluctant to admit that I hadn't heard TBS before last week. It was Ming and some others that turned me onto it, and I've been listening to episodes every day to catch up!

Yes: Narrative is whatever you want it to be!

[HobbyHammer]

Hi Guys! Ok so had a good listen to podcast and agree with a lot of the points. I agree that people think of narrative as a separate entity when in fact, the fact you are playing with toy soldiers and creating events on a tabletop battlefield pretty much means you are slightly invested in Narrative anyway. 

Everyones idea of narrative should be different, and no definition is wrong. To me, a game of Warhammer is a game of Warhammer. Whether you play a pitched battle battleplan, a GW Campaign book battleplan, a custom battleplan, no battleplan. The narrative comes into play when you start taking a game of Warhammer and using that to tell a story. This could be as simple as just naming your general and keeping note of what they do in a game. The other end is using historic battles and recreating them.

Some people begin to confuse Open Play with Narrative, just because you play a game with unbalanced sides or play a game without point values, doesn't automatically make it narrative. If you have a reason/Story for playing the game uneven, then it becomes narrative. The Rise of Empires Event this year will not be using point values, which puts it into the Open Play Category, but because we will have ways of building your force and an overarching story.. combined with the individual players story, this pulls it into Narrative Play. 

There is also a lot of talk of both players needing to be invested in the game to make it narrative, I don't see this being true. For me, all my games turn narrative as I have an over arching story for my own army which I write about after games and tell (or don't tell) people during games. If we are using pitched battles and playing a matched play scenario, my opponent could be playing a straight up Matched Play game, this doesn't mean I can't still advance my own storyline. 

Anyway, there is my two cents! Probably think about it more throughout the day and add, but hope thats what you were after. 

 

[Ollie Grimwood]

At the risk of sounding like a stalker, another great episode.

 

I'd tend to agree with[mention=134]Hobbyhammer[/mention] it doesn't really matter whether my opponent wants narrative or not I'm still playing a story. They can crack on how they like.

 

I certainly don't see trying to win your games and playing a narrative as being mutually exclusive. I certainly try to win my games. Though I would clarify that as trying to achieve the objectives as set out in the Battleplan. Losing all the time is hardly an impressive narrative for one's general after all. Though that's once the battle starts my list selection will revolve around what fits my narrative/looks cool and not necessarily what's the most efficient.

 

For me, and this is the big kid in me, it about the story of what's going on on the battle field (I think it's Paul Buckler who hit this on the head in the episode). I don't fail a charge roll, my unit gets mired down or it courage wavers. My unit doesn't roll well to remove the opposing pieces, they fight like warrior kings smashing the enemy to dirt in a flurry of blows. You get the idea. All very pew pew but what got me into the hobby in the first place was the imagery of things like Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja and the books of people like David Eddings and Tolkien and that's how I see my games.

 

Oh and I think [mention=45]Chris Tomlin[/mention]  doth protest too much he's probably got the most well known named General out there, he's well narrative [emoji6]

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

[HobbyHammer]

2 hours ago, Auticus said:

Narrative players aren't trying to lose games.  Of course they are playing to win.

Unless the narrative for the game is to lose. But to lose with style! Sometimes a great narrative game means the end result is a loss. 

And @Ollie Grimwood, I love you!! 

[wayniac]

I often find that human nature precludes the concept of "playing to lose".  By which I mean, very few people will actively go into a game knowing that the entire goal is that they will lose, and it's a question of when.  This was my problem in RPGs playing something like Call of Cthulhu, despite being a big fan of the Lovecraft mythos; the concept that there was virtually no way to actually succeed made the entire endeavor seem like a colossal waste of time, just to see how long you could live.  It seemed self-defeatist.

I think similar can occur in a narrative scenario where there is no chance of victory; IMHO there should always be something, even if it's rare.  Otherwise, what is the point of the game, if the ending is already known?

[BunkhouseBuster]

To me, Narrative is about creating a story, whether by setting up a scenario or campaign and playing in it, or describing what happens afterwards and incorporating it into your personal/campaign/store fluff.  It's where the story itself is the goal of the game, not to defeat your opponent.

7 minutes ago, wayniac said:

I often find that human nature precludes the concept of "playing to lose".  By which I mean, very few people will actively go into a game knowing that the entire goal is that they will lose, and it's a question of when.  This was my problem in RPGs playing something like Call of Cthulhu, despite being a big fan of the Lovecraft mythos; the concept that there was virtually no way to actually succeed made the entire endeavor seem like a colossal waste of time, just to see how long you could live.  It seemed self-defeatist.

I think similar can occur in a narrative scenario where there is no chance of victory; IMHO there should always be something, even if it's rare.  Otherwise, what is the point of the game, if the ending is already known?

There are instances in history where people would sacrifice themselves for the bigger picture.  The 300 Spartans held the line, knowing that they likely wouldn't survive the entire onslaught of the Persian empire marching upon them.  But they held the line long enough for the Greek City-states to unite and hold off Persia better.  But that's because the Spartans weren't worried about holding an objective for so many turns or trying to get more kill-points than their opponents, they had a bigger picture to worry about, and through that motivation they were willing to sacrifice themselves.  To them, victory is a big picture thing, wanting to win the war, not the battle.

I always felt that the point of Call of Cthulhu was to be self-defeatist, because that's the point of the lore, isn't it?  (I actually don't know for sure, I haven't sat down to read any of Lovecraft's works yet.)  But if you want to give the players some meaning, let their efforts mean something long term, like what they learn or discover can be used by new characters or players to better fight the monsters and cults they encounter.

I'm a much bigger Narrative player now than I was before, but that is because I realized it and embraced it.  To get others into a Narrative, you have to give it some meaning.  I had a D&D campaign years back that had a loose Narrative base of "players go explore in this area for a growing empire" as the hook, but that in itself is not enough.  We all contributed to the story, which really grew from how the players reacted to the situations I threw at them.  Thanks to their silliness/strategies/rolling, we now share the stories of the Brain-in-a-jar overlord, the insulting of the great Ant-Queen, the taming of Derpy the Griffon, and the Arena rescuse-battle-and-escape.  Did we get sidetracked several times?  Yes.  Who was the winner out of those encounters?  All of us were, because winning in D&D cannot be measured in points or objectives being held.  Winning in D&D is having a good time.

My point is that the Narrative is what you make of the game.  If you only focus on the standard definition of "winning" the game on objectives or kills, then that is your Narrative, and it is what so many people focus on; they want to win the battles, not the war.  To "competitive" players, the game in front of them is the most important thing for their army, not the battles to come, as those haven't happened yet, and not the battles before, though they give tactics and strategy and experience to help with this battle.  And that is fine if that is what those players want to focus on.

But for me and my group, we are more interested in coming up with stories and characters based on our exploits, and are working on a narrative campaign based on where we are right now based on our games.  Why are there so many Chaos armies?  Why did the Seraphon disappear, and will they come back?  What are the Ironjawz trying to accomplish by only attacking Chaos?  Will any forces of Order or Death make an appearance?  Sure, it might just be our own personal store canon, but these are the kind of stories that we are creating, and that is more fun to us than focusing strictly on the victory of the game.  To us, "winning" the game isn't scoring the most points on objectives, but in having a good time.

[Menkeroth]

1 hour ago, wayniac said:

Otherwise, what is the point of the game, if the ending is already known?

What's the point of life is you will die anyway. That's your logic  point of any game is to have fun and relax. If not, then something is definitely wrong. Mostly with people, though, but with games as well can it be, especially when they are designed only for competitions (which, by the way, don't show anything). And although life teaches brilliantly that you can't win all the time, people always strive to, which is funny because when they face a real situation where they can't win, they collapse and are shocked. Pitiful. And yes, by the way, narration is what it is - a story which can be everything, but since people seldom can think outside the box, they need others to remind them.