What is a "narrative event" or a "narrative tournament" and how does it differ from a "tournament"

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Wayniac**

Peregrine wrote:
Kriswall wrote:
I think your last few sentences point out why a lot of people don't like narrative events. A truly wonderful narrative event inherently excludes a ton of players. As a store operator, my narrative events almost had to be "You've just landed on Planet Everyoneismad and notice the evil [insert army here] have gotten here first. Fight!". As you point out, that's the only real way to cater to everyone. In a casual, non-store setting where you're perfectly happy to exclude a lot of potential players, a richer narrative is possible.

But at that point why even pretend that you're having a narrative event? Just be honest about the fact that you're running a competitive tournament and do it right.

Because there's a gulf between "Narrative" event and a "competitive tournament" where you'll see trash like those lists from Warzone Atlanta designed just to crush people. Why do you think it's only a binary thing? For me, while I'd agree that just having a basic story to allow everyone to play doesn't make an event narrative (quit the contrary; a true narrative event needs to limit the factions to tell the story, and sorry if you play a faction that is excluded), I think there's something that's sort of a mix between the two; not a cutthroat tournament where you'll see people bringing absolute filth and spam just because they can, but not a limited-to-only-X-factions story that excludes a large swathe of players.

I really think there's a middle ground between the two.

**auticus**

My narrative events are public events and thus cannot exclude people.

However, tournament style lists are not permitted in any of my narrative events.

There is a story that is followed. Additionally, commanders do not have access to the most broken and powerful combos and have to learn how to make do with other things.

This allows for a much more diverse set of armies that show up and is geared more toward the casual as opposed to those that need to compete with the most powerful lists.

I figure there are enough tournaments that exist that cater to the hyper-competitive and in the end it all has overall worked well the past twenty years.

**Kriswall**

Peregrine wrote:
Kriswall wrote:
I think your last few sentences point out why a lot of people don't like narrative events. A truly wonderful narrative event inherently excludes a ton of players. As a store operator, my narrative events almost had to be "You've just landed on Planet Everyoneismad and notice the evil [insert army here] have gotten here first. Fight!". As you point out, that's the only real way to cater to everyone. In a casual, non-store setting where you're perfectly happy to exclude a lot of potential players, a richer narrative is possible.

But at that point why even pretend that you're having a narrative event? Just be honest about the fact that you're running a competitive tournament and do it right.

...because it's not a competitive tournament. It's a reason for a bunch of people to get together and play games without having to worry about who the ultimate winner is. I'd usually have an over-arching objective that EVERYONE could participate in. Something like...

"A BEACON IN THE DARK...
You've detected a distress beacon emanating from a previously unknown planet in a distant system. Deciding to investigate, you send a well armed expedition in the direction of the beacon. When you arrive, you're pleased to see an abandoned planet which your sensors show to be rich in both rare natural resources and abandoned technology. You're less pleased to see the vessels of your hated enemies dropping out of the warp around you. It's time to take what you can and get out quick!"

Scenario #1 - Modified Planetstrike Mission. 1500 points... must use a single Battallion Detachment.
* "In an effort to get a head start on your opponents, you plot out a landing site close to a large cache of natural resources. Unfortunately, it looks like you're not the only one with this idea."
* Players take turns placing 5 "Resource Cache" markers outside of both objective markers and at least 6" away from other markers. If a player has more units within 3" of a marker at the end of the game, he or she claims the marker.

Scenario #2 - Modified Cityfight Mission. 750 points... must be a subset of the above army using a single Patrol Detachment.
* "As the fighting over the planet's natural resources continues, your sensors detect what appears to be a fortified research station with strange energy readings several kilometers away from the main battle. Sensing impending victory, you decide to split your forces and send a patrol to investigate. Perhaps you'll find some rare tech resource or ancient artifact."
* Players take turns placing 5 "Resource Cache" markers outside of both objective markers and at least 6" away from other markers. If a player has more units within 3" of a marker at the end of the game, he or she claims the marker.

At the end of both scenarios, players add up the total number of markers they acquired. This is their score. The top player gets a certificate proclaiming him or her to be the "CONQUEROR of [Insert Planet Name Here]". Then, in descending order, every player gets to pick a price from the "Box of Wonders"... which was really just a box of random odds and ends. Lots of dollar store stuff and maybe a few small bags of themed bits or a candy bar or something. None of the prizes were particularly exciting, but everyone loved it.

I would consider that to be a generally narrative event which is really just a 'show up and fight' sort of thing. It includes every potential player, but is definitely not just a boring old competitive tournament. The winners don't really matter. Everyone gets a story, everyone gets to play and everyone gets a prize (albeit, a crappy one).

**Peregrine**

auticus wrote:
My narrative events are public events and thus cannot exclude people.

However, tournament style lists are not permitted in any of my narrative events.

I also like square circles.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:
Because there's a gulf between "Narrative" event and a "competitive tournament" where you'll see trash like those lists from Warzone Atlanta designed just to crush people. Why do you think it's only a binary thing? For me, while I'd agree that just having a basic story to allow everyone to play doesn't make an event narrative (quit the contrary; a true narrative event needs to limit the factions to tell the story, and sorry if you play a faction that is excluded), I think there's something that's sort of a mix between the two; not a cutthroat tournament where you'll see people bringing absolute filth and spam just because they can, but not a limited-to-only-X-factions story that excludes a large swathe of players.

I really think there's a middle ground between the two.

But calling an event "narrative" while running a standard tournament doesn't actually accomplish those goals. If there's no story element included, beyond a superficial "EVERYONE IS HERE EVERYONE FIGHT" paragraph on the event's facebook page, then there's no reason to to bring anything but the usual tournament lists. You're making the common mistake of using "narrative" to mean "poor list-building strategy is mandatory" rather than anything to do with the story aspect of the game, and presuming that if everyone brings weak lists then a story will magically appear. But power level and the story are two entirely separate things.

**Wayniac**

Maybe if you didn't try to break the game down to a math exercise/doing anything you can to maximize winning as long as you aren't prohibited from doing so... i mean, I get some of your arguments but this just seems to be "I dislike this vegan restaurant, so I'm going to protest it because it's not serving meat"

We get it. You don't like narrative events and prefer "competitive tournaments". That doesn't mean it's either a competitive tournament or not. A narrative/casual event has every right to limit the cheese lists people can bring, as long as they do it up front so you know what to expect.

I agree that there's more to a narrative than just a superficial thing. But you seem to not know (or care?) about casual events, like a laid back league or something, that doesn't WANT the usual tournament lists brought. You keep calling that "poor list building" because it's daring to take things that aren't the most optimal lists, but that's an entire (dare I say the largest) subset of the game, people who just want to play with what they have/what they decided to build and not care that much about maxing out on combi-plasma because the rules let you and it's been mathhammered to be the best choice, or spamming cheap troops to get the most CP.

**Peregrine**

Kriswall wrote:
...because it's not a competitive tournament.

Yes it is. Structurally you're running a competitive tournament, you're just putting the wrong label on it. You're putting randomly-paired armies into generic tournament-style missions with a one-sentence "story" as the only narrative element.

Something like...

{rules}

IOW, "play some generic tournament-style missions and then at the end the person with the most points is declared to be the winner". That is a tournament, nothing more.

**auticus**

I also like square circles.

Yep. Professional wrestling can be entertaining.

**Peregrine**

Wayniac wrote:
Maybe if you didn't try to break the game down to a math exercise/doing anything you can to maximize winning as long as you aren't prohibited from doing so... i mean, I get some of your arguments but this just seems to be "I dislike this vegan restaurant, so I'm going to protest it because it's not serving meat"

No, it's more like "this 'vegan' restaurant is serving dead cow steaks while still calling themselves a vegan restaurant, WTF".

You don't like narrative events and prefer "competitive tournaments".

No, actually I greatly enjoy narrative games. I do not enjoy or respect "narrative" events that are just competitive tournaments with a one-sentence story to bait story-focused players into attending. They offer none of the things I enjoy about playing a narrative game.

You keep calling that "poor list building" because it's daring to take things that aren't the most optimal lists

I keep calling that because that's exactly what it is. Whether or not you consider strategic optimization to be your highest priority it is indisputably making poor strategic choices. You have every right to do so, of course, but I'm not going to pretend that deliberately taking bad units or combinations has anything to do with the story. Nor is it really "casual", given how passionately people argue for the use of these poorly-optimized lists.

**auticus**

Or its a scenario where you don't have the most strategically optimized elements available and you have to make due with what is available.

**Kriswall**

Peregrine wrote:
Kriswall wrote:
...because it's not a competitive tournament.

Yes it is. Structurally you're running a competitive tournament, you're just putting the wrong label on it. You're putting randomly-paired armies into generic tournament-style missions with a one-sentence "story" as the only narrative element.

Something like...

{rules}

IOW, "play some generic tournament-style missions and then at the end the person with the most points is declared to be the winner". That is a tournament, nothing more.

I think you're way too black and white here. There is a grey area between a hardcore, competitive tournament and a narrative event allowing only two models that reenacts a specific honor duel between a Dark Angel and a Space Wolf, with a predetermined winner. In that grey area live a kajillion events that have both narrative and competitive elements. This game is competitive in nature. The rules describe a competition between two people where there is a winner and there is a loser. As such, it's largely impossible to have a narrative event without some competitive elements. It's also challenging to hold any event where many of the players may not know each other and the organizer may not know the players where you're not randomly pairing players against each other.

Sure, what I described has competitive elements... but the competition largely doesn't matter. There's no real prize on the line. There's no cost to play in the event. It's for fun. Sure, the narrative elements are kind of light... but they're there. A short story is still a story, even when compared against a thousand page epic.

**Slipspace**

Wayniac wrote:
Maybe if you didn't try to break the game down to a math exercise/doing anything you can to maximize winning as long as you aren't prohibited from doing so... i mean, I get some of your arguments but this just seems to be "I dislike this vegan restaurant, so I'm going to protest it because it's not serving meat"

We get it. You don't like narrative events and prefer "competitive tournaments". That doesn't mean it's either a competitive tournament or not. A narrative/casual event has every right to limit the cheese lists people can bring, as long as they do it up front so you know what to expect.

I agree that there's more to a narrative than just a superficial thing. But you seem to not know (or care?) about casual events, like a laid back league or something, that doesn't WANT the usual tournament lists brought. You keep calling that "poor list building" because it's daring to take things that aren't the most optimal lists, but that's an entire (dare I say the largest) subset of the game, people who just want to play with what they have/what they decided to build and not care that much about maxing out on combi-plasma because the rules let you and it's been mathhammered to be the best choice, or spamming cheap troops to get the most CP.

Exactly. We can debate how far along the spectrum of narrative -> competitive an event is, but I think we do need to acknowledge the spectrum exists in the first place. Claiming an event is either 100% narrative or 100% competitive simply isn't true, or particularly helpful. I wouldn't be a fan of some of the narrative events detailed here, because I don't think they're sufficiently "narrative" to warrant the title, but I can at least appreciate that if an event is advertised as narrative I have a rough idea of what to expect as far as list power and the general atmosphere.

It may not be an easily quantified thing, but "casual" or "narrative" carries connotations that are helpful in guiding attendees as to what to expect. People may not like it, but they don't have to attend.

**Peregrine**

auticus wrote:
Or its a scenario where you don't have the most strategically optimized elements available and you have to make due with what is available.

That's a pretense, not a legitimate story element. What units are powerful has very little to do with what units are rare/powerful/whatever in the fluff, because rules power is usually based on point costs rather than individual rules in isolation. For example, IG conscripts and commissars were completely broken before the errata, and those are two of the most common units in the Imperium that even the most resource-starved forces would have vast quantities of. On the other hand, consider a Valdor: an incredibly rare "lost tech" tank destroyer with a 10,000 year old laser weapon that nobody can build anymore. It's rare to the point that the pride of the Cadian home regiments is lucky to have a couple of them. It's the kind of thing that, fluff-wise, you'd never see in a "make do" army. But rules-wise it's just a bad Shadowsword, and it will probably never see play in a serious tournament army.

If you're banning based on game balance and excluding overpowered tournament armies you ban the conscripts. If you're banning based on story reasons you ban the Valdor. But virtually every "narrative" event that bans lists/units bans the conscripts, not the Valdor.

Kriswall wrote:
I think you're way too black and white here. There is a grey area between a hardcore, competitive tournament and a narrative event allowing only two models that reenacts a specific honor duel between a Dark Angel and a Space Wolf, with a predetermined winner. In that grey area live a kajillion events that have both narrative and competitive elements. This game is competitive in nature. The rules describe a competition between two people where there is a winner and there is a loser. As such, it's largely impossible to have a narrative event without some competitive elements. It's also challenging to hold any event where many of the players may not know each other and the organizer may not know the players where you're not randomly pairing players against each other.

Sure, what I described has competitive elements... but the competition largely doesn't matter. There's no real prize on the line. There's no cost to play in the event. It's for fun. Sure, the narrative elements are kind of light... but they're there. A short story is still a story, even when compared against a thousand page epic.

Ok, sure, there's a gray area. But what you're talking about is pointing to a patch of 254/254/254 color and saying "look at that gray". No, it's not gray, it's black, and that one point of color away from true 255/255/255 black is not really worth discussing. A tournament with a cheap prize is a tournament where people aren't going to care about the outcome. Making the prize cheap enough that nobody cares about it is not a story.

**Kriswall**

Peregrine wrote:
auticus wrote:
Or its a scenario where you don't have the most strategically optimized elements available and you have to make due with what is available.

That's a pretense, not a legitimate story element. What units are powerful has very little to do with what units are rare/powerful/whatever in the fluff, because rules power is usually based on point costs rather than individual rules in isolation. For example, IG conscripts and commissars were completely broken before the errata, and those are two of the most common units in the Imperium that even the most resource-starved forces would have vast quantities of. On the other hand, consider a Valdor: an incredibly rare "lost tech" tank destroyer with a 10,000 year old laser weapon that nobody can build anymore. It's rare to the point that the pride of the Cadian home regiments is lucky to have a couple of them. It's the kind of thing that, fluff-wise, you'd never see in a "make do" army. But rules-wise it's just a bad Shadowsword, and it will probably never see play in a serious tournament army.

If you're banning based on game balance and excluding overpowered tournament armies you ban the conscripts. If you're banning based on story reasons you ban the Valdor. But virtually every "narrative" event that bans lists/units bans the conscripts, not the Valdor.

Kriswall wrote:
I think you're way too black and white here. There is a grey area between a hardcore, competitive tournament and a narrative event allowing only two models that reenacts a specific honor duel between a Dark Angel and a Space Wolf, with a predetermined winner. In that grey area live a kajillion events that have both narrative and competitive elements. This game is competitive in nature. The rules describe a competition between two people where there is a winner and there is a loser. As such, it's largely impossible to have a narrative event without some competitive elements. It's also challenging to hold any event where many of the players may not know each other and the organizer may not know the players where you're not randomly pairing players against each other.

Sure, what I described has competitive elements... but the competition largely doesn't matter. There's no real prize on the line. There's no cost to play in the event. It's for fun. Sure, the narrative elements are kind of light... but they're there. A short story is still a story, even when compared against a thousand page epic.

Ok, sure, there's a gray area. But what you're talking about is pointing to a patch of 254/254/254 color and saying "look at that gray". No, it's not gray, it's black, and that one point of color away from true 255/255/255 black is not really worth discussing. A tournament with a cheap prize is a tournament where people aren't going to care about the outcome. Making the prize cheap enough that nobody cares about it is not a story.

To each his own. You clearly have a very high standard as to what counts as 'narrative enough'. Many people have a lower standard, and will count a 'not very competitive event with a bit of a story' as a narrative event. I'm happy to count myself in that group with a lower standard. It means I get to enjoy more narrative events than someone who might otherwise turn their nose up at "a tournament with a cheap prize".

I am curious though. Can you give us an example of a narrative event for 40k that you attended and approved of? I'm seeing lots of "not good enough", but I'm not seeing lots of 40k examples that meet your criteria.

**auticus**

Guess not.

**Peregrine**

Kriswall wrote:
Many people have a lower standard, and will count a 'not very competitive event with a bit of a story' as a narrative event.

And that's exactly my point! It's not just about standards, it's about what the word "narrative" does and does not mean. A less-competitive tournament is not inherently a narrative event, it's just a less-competitive tournament. Competition and story are not opposite ends of a single scale.

I am curious though. Can you give us an example of a narrative event for 40k that you attended and approved of? I'm seeing lots of "not good enough", but I'm not seeing lots of 40k examples that meet your criteria.

No, I haven't. I've played plenty of narrative games, but not any events. The "narrative events" that have been accessible to me inevitably suck and are just poorly-designed competitive tournaments with a sentence or two of terrible fanfiction attached. And I'm not entirely convinced that it's possible to have a good narrative event that uses a tournament-style open invitation policy. But I don't see what your point here is. The lack of good narrative events doesn't mean that the bad ones are somehow better.

**tneva82**

Peregrine wrote:
Kriswall wrote:
...because it's not a competitive tournament.

Yes it is. Structurally you're running a competitive tournament, you're just putting the wrong label on it. You're putting randomly-paired armies into generic tournament-style missions with a one-sentence "story" as the only narrative element.

Something like...

{rules}

IOW, "play some generic tournament-style missions and then at the end the person with the most points is declared to be the winner". That is a tournament, nothing more.

Nice to see you still see world in binary.

There's huge, GARGANTUAN gap between 100% narrative events and competive cutthroat events.

As weird as it might sound to you people generally don't view world in binary world. For others there's tons of shades of grey between white and black.

**Neronoxx**

But he's a bird, do they even see color?