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During the past year the pronouncement that some games are narrative rather than competitive has become a popular way of explaining the lack of a game balance system in Age of Sigmar, and to some degree, a way of explaining the poor game balance in Warhammer 40K.

I do not believe that narrative games necessarily are different to competitive games, therefore I do not think we ought to define competitive and use that as a yardstick to define narrative.

Without looking into that point, therefore, I would like people's opinions on what makes a game narrative.

I think that narrative games are games in which an emphasis is placed on telling a story. So, campaigns, asymmetric scenarios, that sort of thing.

Any game that focuses on storytelling over balanced, 1-off games. A game can certainly do both, but "narrative" games will present themselves more as the former than the latter.

However, a game cannot just call itself "narrative" to excuse itself from a minimal amount of work done to make the game playable, and therefore put the onus on the players to excuse poor rules with made-up stories.

In fact, I think the best narrative games will have plenty of rules that cover how models/warbands/armies develop over time.

The game has some method of modifying chosen forces for either one off games, or for building and modifying forces over longer campaigns.

These changes can be to characteristics, skills, weapons, injuries, etc.

For short narrative games, I think of games like Musket & Tomahawks, where Officers will gain traits and subplots that help turn a game into something with a story. The British officer might want to find and destroy secret documents, while the French officer is actually the British officer's friend from before the war, and so wants to keep him alive. What force you take, and what that force composes of, will also change your mission. An Indian force will have a different objective than a British force, and a British force made up of Regulars will likely have a different objective than British force made up of Rangers and Indians.

Long narrative games are more common - Deadzone, Frostgrave, Empire of the Dead, Strange Aeons, etc. They have all the characteristics I mentioned above, and are basically miniature roleplaying games, where each player controls an ever-changing cast of characters. These characters can gain and lose items, abilities, stats, and allies. They seem to favor smaller actions, and even "army" scale games seem on the small side (like Wargods of Aegyptus).

I'm a little on the fence on where to place games like Blucher, that don't have commanders that change over time, but do support campaigns through the Scharnhorst system.

It doesn't need to be a "campaign" game, and I think it's as much about the attitudes of the players as it is to do with game rules.

For example, characters like Ghazkull, Yarrick and Tycho all came from games played out as White Dwarf battle reports. There were no special rules attached to them, the story was just taken from the events in the games played.

Or take a historical game, say Flames of War. It's the difference between "let's play a 1500-point Mid-war game" and "let's re-enact the battle between the 3rd RTR and the 15th Panzer division in April 1942" or whatever. the forces and even the tactics used will be authentic to the scenario.

When I play X-Wing, R2-D2 always goes with Luke Skywalker, and I like flying Luke, Wedge and Han in the Falcon. To me, that elevates it from just a game, to tales of what they gt up to between Yavin IV and Hoth.

Ultimately, the difference is "I want to win this game" vs "I want to see what happens in this situation.

If you're making a game for that sort of audience, then there's things that are unnecessary. For example, a lot of rules are seemingly included to prevent cheating. If I'm writing a game, I'm not going to bother with that, because the intended audience can be trusted. Admittedly that audience is just my mates, but that's the sort of thinking that goes into Black Powder, Hail Caesar, etc. You don't need to nail everything down tightly because all players concerned will be able to agree on how to do things (and are likely to change things anyway even if you did specify it all). It may be different at the other club down the road, but that's OK too. Similarly army lists. A lot of historical gamers will have walls of reference books, and they already know what makes up a British division in the Peninsular War, so there's no need to repeat it in your rules.

I agree that sort of game is unsuitable for a "pick-up" format against strangers, but not aiming at that audience isn't necessarily a flaw.

When you play those games, what are you doing besides saying, "Here's the reason why I chose this list"? Because just from your examples, I don't see any narratives - I see thin veneers for competitive games.

I've played in games that aren't campaigns, but have had rules and objectives that make them, in my mind, more "narrative" than just saying, here's why this fight is going on or this is why I took these particular models.

Take the one I wrote up an AAR for on my blog. It was Union v. Confederates, with each side having over all objectives, and each player had their own, personal objectives that were usually in conflict with everyone else on their own side. The GM gave out special cards that we could use to help (or hinder) out allies or enemies. We had a great time, especially when the Confederate spies tried to break with the rest of the Rebs and run off with the gold for themselves, as per their objectives.

In our Empire of the Dead campaign, my werewolves managed to capture and convert a Holy Order nun. That same nun-gone-native is still running around, and it's always funny to see my opponent try to kill her during a game for her heresy. That's an actual on-going story.

At the same time, I've painted up my humans in All Quiet on the Martian Front as the 1st New Jersey Volunteer Regiment, just so I can paint the infantry with blue coats and give the tanks blue armor. But even if my painting choices have a back story, including those models in a game doesn't make it "narrative."

I also disagree with the idea that the difference between a "narrative" game and "competitive" game is "I want to win this game" vs "I want to see what happens in this situation." In fact, I think that second idea should either stay behind the first idea, or be relegated to role-playing games entirely.

Do you think that when Rommel began his counter attack in North Africa, he turned to his general staff and said; "I don't want to win, I just want to see what happens."

What would audience's reaction have been if Luke had said to the Rebels, "I don't want to destroy the Death Star, I just want to see what happens."

If you are playing a "narrative" then you should be acting like a commander would - i.e., trying to defeat your opponent. You don't have to be a jerk while doing it, and you can try patently dumb tactics if you think it'll work, but otherwise, you're wasting people's time. What happens if I go to a game, get control of a part of one force, and then spend the game doing nothing because, "I want to see what happens"?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In fact. I'd go so far as to say "competitive" is the wrong word to use. All games are competitive. What we should be discussing is "narrative" games or "tournament" games, where the only goal for playing the latter is to determine a winner/loser.

A narrative game would be one in which you play out a story, for example BaC or Space Hulk, the missions join together to form a specific, pre-determined story. Similar to say, metal gear solid. That is not the same as trying to create a narrative from the events that occur in a game.

 JamesY wrote:
A narrative game would be one in which you play out a story, for example BaC or Space Hulk, the missions join together to form a specific, pre-determined story. Similar to say, metal gear solid. That is not the same as trying to create a narrative from the events that occur in a game.

I would say that's a little restrictive as a description, I'd expand it to include games with elements that lend themselves to telling a story even within one game/mission/match. 40k, for example, has elements such as challenges that are there not because they make any kind of sense or are a tactical decision, but because so many stories can be told around an epic clash between champions.

Similarly, the Batman Miniatures Game's missions are inherently narrative as each faction gets specific objectives that it makes sense for them to be going after, and often bonuses for doing so (for example, Bane gets extra points for securing Titan Cannisters, Catwoman gets extra points for gathering Loot) and because the game is so character-driven, which I think lends an instant narrative quality; when Batman plays exactly how you'd expect him to from the comics/films/video games then it's hard not to get immersed in a narrative.

@paradigm I agree with you to an extent. I'd probably separate them into say "narrative games" in which you can only play out a specific story or stories, and games with a strong narrative component, in which yes there is definitely a story being told, but one that you (rather than the game writers) are responsible for creating. Does that make sense? To be clear as well that is only my take on it, I am not trying to say that my views are the definitive explanations.

Narrative games are games were a story is been an element of the game system.

It can be as minimal as the victory conditions of a scenario to as elaborate as a campaign were things change according to the wins and the losses of players participating.

Overall "Narrative" is the way a game designer conveys the rules to the players, all games barring abstracts are more or less narrative to some extend, how else you can get games with solid rules been accused of not been thematic? the narrative failed.

Unfortunately "narrative" is been used as an excuse for poor game design, because the most evocative narratives come from "campaign systems" were the victor usually gets way overpowered over the other players and this has solidified the perception that a game with strong narrative cannot be balanced or have well worded rules.

I disagree with this, narrative is not an excuse.

 infinite_array wrote:
When you play those games, what are you doing besides saying, "Here's the reason why I chose this list"? Because just from your examples, I don't see any narratives - I see thin veneers for competitive games.

I've played in games that aren't campaigns, but have had rules and objectives that make them, in my mind, more "narrative" than just saying, here's why this fight is going on or this is why I took these particular models.

Take the one I wrote up an AAR for on my blog. It was Union v. Confederates, with each side having over all objectives, and each player had their own, personal objectives that were usually in conflict with everyone else on their own side. The GM gave out special cards that we could use to help (or hinder) out allies or enemies. We had a great time, especially when the Confederate spies tried to break with the rest of the Rebs and run off with the gold for themselves, as per their objectives.

In our Empire of the Dead campaign, my werewolves managed to capture and convert a Holy Order nun. That same nun-gone-native is still running around, and it's always funny to see my opponent try to kill her during a game for her heresy. That's an actual on-going story.

At the same time, I've painted up my humans in All Quiet on the Martian Front as the 1st New Jersey Volunteer Regiment, just so I can paint the infantry with blue coats and give the tanks blue armor. But even if my painting choices have a back story, including those models in a game doesn't make it "narrative."

I also disagree with the idea that the difference between a "narrative" game and "competitive" game is "I want to win this game" vs "I want to see what happens in this situation." In fact, I think that second idea should either stay behind the first idea, or be relegated to role-playing games entirely.

Do you think that when Rommel began his counter attack in North Africa, he turned to his general staff and said; "I don't want to win, I just want to see what happens."

What would audience's reaction have been if Luke had said to the Rebels, "I don't want to destroy the Death Star, I just want to see what happens."

If you are playing a "narrative" then you should be acting like a commander would - i.e., trying to defeat your opponent. You don't have to be a jerk while doing it, and you can try patently dumb tactics if you think it'll work, but otherwise, you're wasting people's time. What happens if I go to a game, get control of a part of one force, and then spend the game doing nothing because, "I want to see what happens"?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In fact. I'd go so far as to say "competitive" is the wrong word to use. All games are competitive. What we should be discussing is "narrative" games or "tournament" games, where the only goal for playing the latter is to determine a winner/loser.

There's a difference between playing to win, and winning being the only thing that's important. As I said, the narrative informs how you act. For example, I am playing like the commander would, but that's not necessarily the best way to play the game; for example, I can see that you've kept a large force of infantry in reserve behind that hill; sending my cavalry up onto it unsupported is clearly a stupid thing to do, but since my commander doesn't know that, I may well do just that (sometimes games will include rules for that sort of "fog of war", but not always). Or when selecting an army, I'll take what's appropriate, not what's best.

What happens if I go to a game, get control of a part of one force, and then spend the game doing nothing because, "I want to see what happens"?

If you think that would make an interesting story, go for it (and at least it'll be your choice; I've heard many a horror story of someone at a convention game ending up doing that because the activation rules forced it upon them; imagine turning up at a con game and being told you get to play Blucher at Waterloo - just wait there for a couple of hours and then we'll roll to see if your troops arrive ) . But I meant things like Imperial Guard officers challenging the rampaging Chaos Lord; most of the time they'll get squashed, but it's the sort of thing they'd do (and sometimes miracles happen, and now my army has a new special character )

Your way works too, but you can play it both ways - either change the game to suit a pre-arranged story, or play out the story in the game. Even something as simple as placing objective markers in suitably impressive terrain features rather than just placing them wherever would be tactically beneficial for you. Even something as simple as setting the scenery up so that it looks like a settlement rather than randomly placing model buildings or setting up a table that looks less like a paintball arena and more like a battlefield. It turns it, in my mind, from "I moved these models 6" forward and shot at that vehicle" to "demi-squad Invictus advanced up the main street, taking cover in the ruined lobby of the Administratum building. Brother Janus spotted the traitor tank guarding the enemy position, and fired his missile launcher, getting a lucky hit on the vehicle's fuel tanks". That's what I meant by "seeing what happens" - the story comes from the game, rather than the other way around. Some of my models have received added modelling or painting work to show battle honours after a particularly good performance.

The best example I can think of was a Warhammer battle report in White Dwarf 153 (right at the tail end of 3rd edition); It featured Dwarves vs Bretonnians fighting over a burial mound. The entire report was written as a story, with none of the usual "Jervis' turn 2: First, I declared a charge with my unit of Longbeards ..." stuff. Apart from designating the burial mound scenery piece as the focus of the battle, there weren't any special characters, no scripted events, just a game of Warhammer.

All the above are nice but, have absolutely no meaning from a design perspective and definitely are irrelevant for game balance.

Players can infuse such narrative to the game even in abstract games like chess or go, but from a designers perspective this is not relevant, the designers job is to deliver game mechanism that allow the fluff of the game to be delivered on the game table, game balance on the other hand helps both players have fun, even in asymmetrical scenarios were one side is overwhelmingly more powerful.

From a design point of view, I would say the thing that's important for "narrative gaming" is that the rules closely reflect the setting.

If it's your own setting, you can write it so that the sides are balanced (at least in a tactical sense). If it's an existing one, that's trickier.

Why should the sides be balanced? a balanced game system does not need the sides from the fluff to be balanced, just the game.

But what I'm saying is that (IMO, obviously) the game needs to very closely reflect that setting. If that setting is a historical one, or a fictional one written by someone else, that means you have to work with what's there, whereas if it's your own you can tailor the setting to fit the gameplay you want.

Yes, making a game system for other's fluff or real history is more difficult than making it for your own fluff but why would that impact the system or gameplay?

Apart from recreating a real historic battle, were most are a one sided affair (Waterloo is so loved because its one of those rare cases it could have gone either-way) even in historical games you can create a set for creating even balanced games, with narrative included.

I would say the biggest problem is when you have somebody enforcing on you stuff for commercial reasons that violate the fluff and narrative, like the 40k, were marines come in ridiculous amounts and die in equally big numbers, in contrast with the fluff.

I'd say there is no connection between narrative and balance. Unlike a movie or a book which tell the viewer/reader a story, a narrative Game is an interactive piece that provides the players with tools to tell their own stories. The world or setting being the background and the game system - the medium.

"Narrative" doesn't affect balance in the first place (gameplay does) - rather the plot pattern defines key gameplay features.

You play a narrative game not to win, but to live through it. Narrative (e.g. Arkham Horror board game) means you enjoy playing even if you all die in the end.

If players are thinking about lack of balance in the narrative game, it means the story is not interesting.

The more you force a story on the player - the more you lose the essense of the game. You can force characters and armylists - this is bad enough. Next step is to force scenarios and, finally, the key events - some PC games do this. In the end you have someone tell you a story but no gameplay left apart from achieveng certain points and goals - that's when you start thinking about the "best character build".

You don't ask for balance in the real world - on the battlefields of all eras there were and will be good and bad match-ups which provide base for heroic epics and romance. We don't ask for some sort of equalizer because we find the "plot" of history truly authentic and believable.

To make a narrative game interesting the designer must succeed in implementing story elements through gameplay.

I think your point is basically true. The point of a narrative game is to enjoy playing it rather than to win, as such. In other words, the players don't care if they win or lose.

If this is the case, is there any point in balance or fairness in a narrative game? I am thinking about wargames, rather than games like Arkham Horror or Pandemic. Wargames are inherently oppositional if not competitive.

In a confrontational game, yes, balance matters a lot, there are select few who willingly will set up and play an hour or two (or 5 or more with some game systems) when they know they have no chance of winning.

Trying to desperately survive through a game is fine when it is Co-Op, then the difficulty is were the games challenge is, Ghost stories, Pandemic, Shadows over Camelot, Kingdom Death Monster and many more are this, a total party kill is not far away and players together must overcome the game.

This will not work in Versus game when a player fights another player he wants to have an equal opportunity in victory.

Then you need to arrange the scenario objectives so that each player has a roughly equal chance of winning - which need not be by doing the same things. For example, something like Thermopylae. The victory conditions can't simply be "rout the enemy" for both sides. The Spartans win by simply surviving for a set length of time, even if they don't kill a single Persian. Or a commando raid, where one side needs to blow up the target and escape before the defender can bring superior numbers to bear.

While you can do that with any game, I would suggest that a game calling itself a "narrative game" should include such scenarios alongside more typical "equal opposing force" scenarios. After all, most gamers will simply play the missions in the book, and getting any significant buy-in for home-brewed scenarios is difficult.

That is game balance.

The problem is that outside of boxed games were all game pieces are provided, creating asymmetrical scenarios is problematic, especially since the predominant gameplay method is pick up and play.

That been said I strongly disagree that these scenarios are the only way to convey narrative or the pseudo RPG that require a game master, boardgames have over a decade now shown narrative can easily be conveyed even with "identical" forces.

For me the most important part of narrative is for the game elements to feel as they should and do what they are supposed to do.

For me the most important part of narrative is for the game elements to feel as they should and do what they are supposed to do.

Plot pattern predetermines the concept of gameplay.

Fuel may be important, wind may be important, mental stability of a spellcaster may be important, switching power between shields, weapons and thrusters... etc. All these features by themselves don't influence the balance. Narrative game is a step away not from competitive, but from abstract - where you can just substitute any pieces with any other without losing the point.

Once you've chosen gameplay features suggested by the story, you sort them out and remove those that just don't fit in for various reasons and balance the rest. As long as you remain true to the plot it wll be fine. But as soon as you, say, drop protection value of powered armour so that other factions with makeshift weapons have a decent chance to score a hit - you start losing the story and moving towards an abstract concept where power armour is just a visual representation of a chess board piece. To save the story you have to counterweigh nigh invulnerability of with something else like a limited charge or EMP/overheating/hacking weakness. Scenario goals are but secondary means of balancing 'cause they are not universal and don't solve the issue in general.

AndrewGPaul wrote:From a design point of view, I would say the thing that's important for "narrative gaming" is that the rules closely reflect the setting.

PsychoticStorm wrote:For me the most important part of narrative is for the game elements to feel as they should and do what they are supposed to do.

I think we're saying the same thing.

I feel this is relevant:
http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/01/20/narrative-is-not-a-game-mechanic/

Conceptually a narrative game is aimed at producing some sort of coherent/enjoyable narrative. It is a broad goal, and can apply to many different formats. Usually the biggest hurdle for a game is being able to evoke something other than a collection of numbers/probabilities/etc. This is closely tied to the issue of immersion.

As pointed out, it is often applied as a cover for poorly thought out mechanics and lack of internal consistency/ coherent design.

That was a nice article.

It was an interesting article but it related totally to one-player video games. Whilst I see one-player video games as a totally valid kind of game, it seems to me that any two player game is a different kind of system, because of the relationship between the players.

It keeps some basics of game design.

Essentially a game designer is a story teller, but instead of reciting the story, drawing it or showing it as a movie they make an interactive story were the audience shapes the story.

Narrative is what glues the "story" to the game mechanics that are the tools you give to the players to experience the story you want to tell.

Story must not be interpreted it as a scenario, it can be but it can also be allowing players to recreate or experience moments in a fictional environment the game designer has envisioned,

The game rules allow the players to interact with the story, the narrative create the necessary immersion for the players to experience it.

The problem with "Narrative", "Story", "Scenario" as words is how many meanings they can have, the usual excuse of narrative to create stories worth to be told been used as an excuse for poor rules and balance is the most typical, "oh but that lonely trooper killed that big monster its so cool", well maybe, for one player maybe for both, but lets stand out a bit, what does the world say about this situation, can it happen? does the big monster always described as almost invincible and dying after a huge effort spend? is this recreated on the game? if not why does it? does it break the immersion of fluff to what happens really? I have heard a lot of times in GW games "F dice" this shows a disconnect of player with the story, a clear fail of narrative, similar is Space hulk, while I love the game it is a masterfully crafted game that conveys the desperation of marines in aliens (lets be honest here) it fails at the narrative when you factor in space marines and 40k established fluff.

It seems to me that in a video game the narrative is plotted in by the designer to keep you playing something that often basically is a twitch game, while on the table top you use the rules to structure and formalise the playing out a narrative that you create with your opponent.

In fact, you don't need rules, or you can make them up as you go along, and this is how children start playing with toy soldiers.

I think what a lot of people mean by narrative is some emotional involvement with the imaginary characters in your army.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
"What is a narrative game?"

figment of GW's imagination!

To bad they do not realize a balanced game (or at least as close as 40K can get) can still be narrative driven.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It seems to me that in a video game the narrative is plotted in by the designer to keep you playing something that often basically is a twitch game, while on the table top you use the rules to structure and formalise the playing out a narrative that you create with your opponent.

In fact, you don't need rules, or you can make them up as you go along, and this is how children start playing with toy soldiers.

I think what a lot of people mean by narrative is some emotional involvement with the imaginary characters in your army.

Computer games have rules that are used to play the game, tabletop games just do not have them under the hood, computer games also teach the game while you play it while tabletop games need a rulebook to teach the rules, both face the same issues but from different perspective, a rule may be misinterpreted in a tabletop game, but miscoded in a CG, exploiters exist on both.

Both games use the story to make you keep playing the game and both rely on narrative to immerse the players in the experience the game wants to offer.

Yes, you can make rules while you go, you can even Calvinball the whole game and it will be an interesting experiment to see if different groups create rules to better immerse themselves in whatever they are doing or to give them advantage, but once you give a set of rules tied in a setting its the designers response to make the players feel in the world he created get immersed in and take aprt in the story the designer wants to tell.

And when I say story I do not necessarily mean a structured drama like an RPG or a theatrical plot, having two armies clash in a "plain" battle is a story and the choices you give to the players, the rules you have and the narrative the rules forge to the players is the end result.

A good balanced game system will give the best result and convey the best narrative to the players effectively immersing them to the story been told.

You can play the narrative of an American Civil War battle with Stars N Bars, or with Johnny Reb, or Fire & Fury, or Black Powder, but you can only play the narrative of Uncharted with Uncharted, but the narrative of Uncharted 2, 3 and 4 follows the same rules but a different story.

Also, every time you and a friend play the battle of Gettysburg, there is the chance of the narrative unfolding differently, which every single person in the world who plays Uncharted, plays the same narrative all the way through.

I do not know what this means in terms of what makes a game narrative or not.