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Its been suggested that I run a narrative tournament, but I've never participated in one before. I've participated and run campaigns, tournaments, and leagues, but I could really use some advice on what makes a good narrative event.

Traditionally we use formats from Big GTs (BAO, LVO, NOVA, Da Boyz, Adepticon, ATC, etc). We average about 20 players at our GT style events, and 10-12 at our more obscure events (like this one). I would be interested in using a successful narrative event if someone can help me locate the info related to it.

Not being a tournament.

We are trying something similar at our FLGS, a Campaign with a bit of fluff and some narrative elements mixed into a competitive League.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/647658.page#7814905

We start this weekend, but already it has been very complicated (made more so by our pairing system). No doubt more problems will come out of the woodwork, but we will see how it goes.

I guess to make a good narrative tournament you have to try and address both sides of the coin.

The narrative has to have a logical story arc which accommodates all those taking part, while providing some form of self determination in terms of success/failure on the battlefield that allow players room to forge their own narrative without breaking the overall construct (nids, without fail, will break this every time).

The tournament side of it then has to deal with providing balanced missions and FOC systems, as well as being relevant to other tournaments in existence - if they are too specifically tailored to the narrative they become stand alone and irrelevant in the wider tournament context. This second part is a lot harder to achieve than the first, as well as more subjective as anytime you create restrictions people will complain about it being not truly 'competitive'.

For our setup, the narrative is addressed by the wide story setting, and self determination is offered through the campaign map strategy and veterancy systems. The tournament side is dealt with by using BAO style mission format (modified to reflect the narrative) that standardizes rewards while the campaign map restricts/standardizes the FOC options for each force. The competitive element is then incorporated in the league system.

 Peregrine wrote:
Not being a tournament.

Sadly true. If you want a good narrative it is easier all round to just do a campaign.

Why not have an idea of a great convergence happening.

A powerful artifact has crash landed on a planet after a warp storm opened a hole in normal space and a long forgotton ship (for example a lost craftword) came out and crashed into the planet.

The artifact on board the ship has drawn the interest of all the major factions in the game. However due to the warp storm the location cannot be accessed by space, and so the factions race across the planet surface in a bid to make it their first.

Obviously the different factions clash with each other as they race towards the space ship crash site. This is where the tournament comes in, defeated armies have to give up and go home.

If you are doing a World Cup style tournament the two sides could represent the east and the west.

For the final the crashed ship could be a centre piece of the battlefield.

Just shooting ideas

I've run a few narrative events. I can send you the pack to the last one we did if you like, or post the player pack here if anyone is interested.

However, what your players are looking for maybe different from what I was running. Ours were always about story and narrative and so people entered into the spirit of that. We had a few formal restrictions (f.e. we had banned all special characters as none of them were there) but in reality everyone understood that these weren't events you turned up to with multiple wraithknights or a chapter master.

We also used really off the wall missions.. in our last campaign one mission was fought on a space station to try and sabotage it, while on another the only piece of terrain was a giant pyramid that could be used to shoot other tables if the chaos guys got to the top.

Do a tourney format but have 'teams'. Have a story with objectives with good vs evil teams. Allow people to coordinate the objectives and missions to send the people best equipped for each job to each area. Have secret missions so opponents may not have the same objectives. Change based upon aggregate objectives.

People get a day of organized play and get to play with their toys but there is more of a narrative theme for it.

We've been running a lot of narrative tournament events in our club and home shop the past half year, as well as many in the past. I've been scribbling down general notes and thoughts about organizing these kinds of events as I've gone along, so I cleaned those up into a (long) post:

http://www.rocketshipgames.com/blogs/tjkopena/2015/05/narrative-tournament-design-in-tabletop-wargaming/

There's a bunch of general ideas and considerations, as well as links to examples of a number of different concrete mechanics and narratives.

I think player buy in is key and having clear communication to said players about the theme and fluff of the campaign.
If 9 guys show up with really fluffy, well thought out lists and one guys shows up with scatspam then things arent going to go well.

Having an engaging storyline, custom missions (FW IA books have a great selection of these) and a good campaign structure also help a lot.

Good article tjk.

The NoVA Narrative is the best narrative event I've ever played in.

You can find out more about the event Chumby loves at the NOVA Open website, or direct link to the primer is here:

http://www.novaopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-Narrative-Draft-Primer.pdf

We even are providing a big ass awesome miniature this year based upon the story the Narrative players have driven and developed over the past 4 years.

MVBrandt wrote:
You can find out more about the event Chumby loves at the NOVA Open website, or direct link to the primer is here:

http://www.novaopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-Narrative-Draft-Primer.pdf

We even are providing a big ass awesome miniature this year based upon the story the Narrative players have driven and developed over the past 4 years.

You are relentless.