Lessons for Narrative Design from Modern Tabletop RPGs
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- Опубліковано 27 тра 2021
- In this 2019 GDC session, Thorny Games' Kathryn Hymes explains what narrative designers across all mediums can learn from niche and indie tabletop RPGs.
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We need google plus back or some archives of the old discussions
YES! Something for analogue games too! 😆
Awesome
I would love to see more such videos. With more in depth content.
This was a very nice introduction to the fact that there exists a whole universe of design to explore just outside the boundaries of mainstream RPGs ❤️
thanks so much , as somebody who has started an AAA quality rpg platformer with devlogs this helps so much !
Nice
The last question was about emergent narrative in games. She didn't give any examples, implying it's too commonplace. Is it though? Could someone provide some examples of games who's goal is to nurture emergent narrative?
Pretty much ALL the titles she mentioned in the talk have their narrative emerge from active play with little or no prep.
@@UnPlayableGames pretty sure the question was about emergent narrative in video games not tabletop. This is primarily a video game conference. It looks like she had no ideas since she fell back to “I’m in a world of tabletop where they are everywhere.” I think it’s a fair question, to hope that she has some opinions about the thing she is bridging to. Otherwise it’s a 1 way dump of “this is what’s great in my world” that you could present to any group since she doesn’t talk about the other side of the bridge (video games) at all.
@@kittenburger_prime I find this way of seeing her talk a bit... myopic?
First of all, emergent stories are common in the Modern rpg universe, but are still a novel and often unheard of concept in the Trad/Mainstream side of the moon, with D&D and most other Trad games having their gameplay squarely rooted in pre-determined adventure modules or, at best, one-sided GM-improv.
Secondly, I think that this talk is more about introducing the GDC crows to what is the game design talk in the ttRPG arena, than imparting a specific and immediately usable lesson.
ARE there videogames whose gameplay centers on producing an emergent story?
Can they even exist?
What design solutions could lead there?
IMHO :)
@@UnPlayableGames right, the only reason I’m saying anything is because I think there was a miscommunication in the original exchange. Also I’m adding my opinion that I would’ve liked to see a connection be made by her. However I find myself thinking that way about many presentations that give baseline info but don’t show any interesting applications of the ideas.
Call me myopic if you wanna be like that, but I’m sorry for expecting more than the bare minimum. I’m looking for talks about being constructive and creative instead of talks that are just saying “hey here’s a thing that exists.” Reminds me of shallow Ted talks or book reports.
So I’m just expressing that her talk does not meet my hopes.
Like what if I went to a hospital and gave a presentation about 3-D printing, but I never actually gave even the smallest amount of thought or offered any ideas about how 3-D printing could be used by the hospital. I’ve been to workplace talks were they sing praises about diversity but don’t offer actionable solutions about diversity.
It’s really kind of annoying that people get attention and money for so little.
Answers to the question you pose are things that I’m interested in and I wish I could find a place to talk about those.
@@kittenburger_prime I don't know what your background is... but I hear you and understand you.
Maybe it's just me, but the simple fact that there has been a talk, any talk at all, about proper ttRPGs at the GDC feels like a big conquest for the whole ttRPG segment that, outside of the D&D limelight, is barely existent on most people's radar.
She could have said more, she could have said it better. I am personally still amazed that some of "us" were given a chance to stand on that podium AT ALL.
To me, it feels more like a first step in a process that could slowly turn the GDC from a VIDEO-game design conference into a GAME design conference.
To me this is incredibly exciting, as in the small world of ttRPGs there is no space currently where people can really talk about game design. Not in such a big, professional, far reaching way as at the GDC.
Many player communities still cling to the idea that game design is useless, that the games they play come from nowhere, that the mechanics they use have no real impact in their play activity, and that games/designers/publishers that try to say otherwise and actually explore the limits and potentialities of the ttRPG form are weird heretics that want to burn down the good old "traditional" way of playing.
So yes, I hear you. But I am also trying to (maybe poorly) convey why I am so excited by this talk. And why I advocate for people to understand and like and support it, so that more (and better!) talks will come after it.
I'm just excited to see my category (as a fellow ttRPG designer) represented and recognised among "the adults" ^_^
Only half an hour? Goddamnit.
I preferred a more mechanics focused lecture but not bad, somethign that go deeper instead of wider with a more analitical aproach and less personal ideas in the mix is what you want with this kind of lecture, anyway appreciated it overall, there was some ideas really worth exploring in the mix
I am long in the boat of imposing a narrativism structure into a gamism game.
This talk sounds like more of a social commentary than anything else.
But I really like the Fruitful Void concept. This is the reson why you DON"T ADD SANITY METERS to lovecraftian games.
Well, considering game mechanics are designed to frame the focus of your psyche it kind of is. You automatically are mentally bound to what rules exist within a medium because the human mind doesn't do so well with infinite possibilities and is instead more effective when focusing on a few concepts at a time. That's why in D&D roleplaying feels so awkward for a new player, nothing about its structure invites role play, only dice rolls and resolution by GM. There aren't mechanics that make you even think about role playing, it's just something other people tell you that you're supposed to do for some reason. Conversely the games and design concepts talked about here gear your brain into natural and emergent storytelling and role play because their rules put you into the mind of a writer and not an RPG video game character. So in effect, all mechanics are just psychological tricks that focus people on what the game wants you to focus on. Well designed mechanics are ones that make you focus on what the game intends you to and marries its themes together. Poorly designed mechanics cause dissonance in the game's focus and themes. An example of poorly used mechanics are the social checks in D&D paired with its implied desire for you to roleplay. Are you supposed to role play and act out your dialogue or are you supposed to give a brief synopsis of what your character is trying to convey and roll? Most people have you roleplay and then have that influence the dice roll, but that's untrue to your character's assumed ability. If you're naturally charismatic in real life and your character isn't this causes dissonance. The mechanic is an after thought in an attempt to use the same broad mechanics to govern combat, climbing, forging weapons and talking, but these same mechanics are not appropriate for all these instances in a single form.
Sorry for the rant, hope you at least found it interesting.
Yeah, I think there's a number of cool ideas but mixed with some propagandistic ones, in these cases when I take notes it's just better to focus on the good stuff to learn ignoring the what is not useful or sometimes detrimental
Best nap I had in a while.
was hoping for a professional explanation of the narrative problems of the medium and how they can arise in video games. not someone from "professional" circles that praise these problems. at least the fruitful void was a concept (albeit mediocrely explained) that can be very useful and can be applied to many current problems in game design.
Why were you hoping for that?
@@aivvv How was there nothing to be learned here?
@@downsjmmyjones101 there were things to learn here, just not as much as i hoped for and other things than i expected.
@@Ironforce7701 Why did you expect there to be other things to be learned? What signaled a different topic/approach from what you got?
@@downsjmmyjones101 The title speaks of narrative desgin. Which for me first connects with the 15 story beats of film and book narrative after "Save the cat". Or the story structure of Kishōtenketsu. But the lessons mentioned here are GM-ful Games, Fruitful void and Artefacts of the game.
For me, these are not narrative "lessons" but general game design "concepts". I'm just realising myself that I'm having trouble putting into words why it doesn't sound like Narrative lessons to me, the fact that English isn't my first language doesn't help. Maybe that's enough for an explanation.
There's a lot of emphasis on "modern" rules as if newer games are automatically superior by virtue of being newer. There really isn't anything new on the Indy scene if you know anything about the history of ttrpg design. The only "new" ideas, really, center around turning these games into expressing social and political agendas, and stripping gm's of agency in the hobby. The vast majority of players don't like or care about this stuff (easily 95%), but the woke activists infecting the hobby would like to convince the world that they represent the hobby.
Show me a game pre-Sorcerer which does what and how Apocalypse World does how and what it does.
I'll wait. Take as much time as you want.
The ideas that came out of the forge both parallel to it, and as a result of it, are unequivocally revolutionary to what TTRPGs are. We aren't speaking about if anyone ever played a game like it, but whether a game was ever designed to be played that way.
Like it or hate it, it changed it.
I gave it 5 minutes and still had no inkling where it was going. The speaker was talking a lot but not saying much. If you're going to talk about narrative writing, try not to lose a friendly audience so fast next time.