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As the question states. If you saw a "narrative event", what would you insinuate about it? What should a narrative event entail?

That there's a story behind the battles.

That the battles we do will affect the story.

And, hopefully, that everyone there is a good sport about winning and losing.

A narrative event, to me, should definitely place a great emphasis on the story. I want to know WHY my Khorne Bloobound (beside just being Khorne Bloodbound! hehe!) are looking the ancient wazoo of power. I like the battles to effect the story, at least in some way, and I want a satisfying conclusion for all the factions involved.

I immediately think of something akin to a campaign, with lots of asymmetrical battles, and experience awarded to units and/or perks to further games being doled out because of the outcome of the campaign as it progresses.

I don't however, view a single game as "narrative" compared to its counterparts. Like nothing about AOS makes it any more/less narrative than any other round base skirmish game.

Several things:

1) There will be lots of "fluffy" rules added, most of which are an awkward mess and/or poorly balanced. These rules will add nothing to the experience of playing the game, but will tell you that this is an event where you are supposed to Forge A Narrative.

2) People will whine a lot if you bring a list that is "too powerful" or "not fluffy enough" according to their personal unwritten rules of How The Game Should Be Played. They will expect you to play an army like theirs, with seven different factions (none of which resemble their descriptions in the background fiction) led by a Mary Sue HQ that they really want to tell you about.

3) There will be some kind of "story" included, and it will inevitably be a paragraph of awful fanfiction attempting to explain why every single faction in the setting is present in the same battle. A week after the event nobody will be able to tell you what the "story" was.

We have a narrative HH campaign going on in my local group, which means were are fighting a series of battles set during the Horus Heresy. Games build on each other, Traitors and Loyalists stay segregated with Mechanicum floating between the two. No xenos races are played and the standard is to have all figures painted.

 auticus wrote:
As the question states. If you saw a "narrative event", what would you insinuate about it? What should a narrative event entail?

This is a campaign where you can add more then one or two players, multiple boards, schemes within schemes, and plans within plans. We had one a long time ago... back in the day with players bringing in a squad of termies, against the stores armies of chaos in a battle in the 13th crusade LoTD event. Rogue Trader events were always like this as well.
Players bring 250-500 points, depending on the scenario, overwhelming odds, and a campaign event log, where if certain objectives were met, other campaign events would come into play, such as an orbital strike, reinforcements from off world, drop ship inbound, Surprise Xenos attack, giant monster, minefield, artillery support, save the trapped squad, save the inquisitor.... etc.etc.etc.

The narration comes when you put detail to the war, and give names to the face, and add in special characters, side goals, or side missions. One example I played personally was that one of my squads saved an Inquisitor, and I bought an Inquisitor model, after the battle, to add to my force.

One great way to get players to start the game with is to play this sort of a game, and combine it with build, paint, and play events. Set up a map, add in objectives, and pins on a map, as you add point costs and force structure to the battle. By the end of the month, or two, players have had their teeth cut on the game, build and learn about forces, and can also be inclusive of all levels of players, as you link up your cherries with your grizzled old vets as trainers/ advisers.

Not just standard tournament size games. Whether it be Apocolypse, Kill Team or Combat Patrol something slightly different.

Ideally?
That players get to play an interconnected series of scenarios with store-supplied armies and missions, and the outcome of each game defines some aspect of the next game, either it be the terrain layout, the army builds, deployment/reserves/player sequence/objectives etc... With the backstory behind the conflict and non-linear outcome of the whole thing.

Realistically?
That there is some kind of GM preparing the story and missions (terrain and objectives) and that attendees and matches are grouped (for power ballance purposes) so that this is a collective effort of telling/discovering a coherent story, not a tournament with a single winner.

There's a story behind the battle.

All armies must be painted in a serious, unified theme. (No sports teams armies, no grey horde armies.)

All the tables will be painted and presented with solid, unified scenery.

The composition rules will encourage fluff compliant armies over competitive ones. (Highlander format, f'rex.)

 Jimsolo wrote:
The composition rules will encourage fluff compliant armies over competitive ones. (Highlander format, f'rex.)

Highlander is completely anti-fluff and not appropriate at all in a narrative event. Which just demonstrates my point #2: it isn't about following the background fiction, it's about demanding that everyone bring armies that are bad at winning games.

Wyrds current worldwide event is a pretty great example of a narrative event.

The story involves every faction, there's new story scenarios every fortnight, there's two ways to influence the outcome, and the story develops as the event goes on. It can be played via standard games or as a part of their campaign system.

Essentially, there's 3 new characters. Each time a new set of scenarios is released with the updated story, there's little teaser snippets of what will happen for each faction should they win that fortnight. Every henchman can report for his group a set limit of game results to affect which faction affects the character, and overall faction wins dedicated to a character will claim them for that faction when they go into their rulebook.

It's a neat way to let the community fight over something that will permanently be added to the game, be involved with each characters developing story, but not have to be concerned about affecting the overarching meta plot that they're already planned out.

It would mean that people like Peregrine and his ilk would give it a wide berth so others could enjoy the game in a way that isn't "must try to win with the best units in the game"

When I think of "narrative event" I think "not 40k"

When I think of "40k narrative event" I mostly think "they're going to come up with some stupid unfluffy way to get people to play uncompetitively and/or mash multiple armies together".

 Jimsolo wrote:
There's a story behind the battle.

All armies must be painted in a serious, unified theme. (No sports teams armies, no grey horde armies.)

All the tables will be painted and presented with solid, unified scenery.

The composition rules will encourage fluff compliant armies over competitive ones. (Highlander format, f'rex.)

That's almost exactly what I have in my head for a fluffy event. I'm not sure about Highlander or other formats, but the general "feel" is "We're not here to pound noobs into dust. We are trying to tell a story." Hopefully, the GM is good and can tie the games together well. That is a perfectly fine way to play an event.

Hopefully the games tie-in from round to round to tell the story like saving/capturing a forge world, or some other major event.

Gimme a reason to care about WHY my loyalist space marines are fighting Eldar! Get off my land!

Wayniac wrote:
It would mean that people like Peregrine and his ilk would give it a wide berth so others could enjoy the game in a way that isn't "must try to win with the best units in the game"

+1

Wayniac wrote:
It would mean that people like Peregrine and his ilk would give it a wide berth so others could enjoy the game in a way that isn't "must try to win with the best units in the game"

+2

Fewer mouth-breathing "pro Warhammer athletes," more people with a more balanced view of the hobby.

 gorgon wrote:
Fewer mouth-breathing "pro Warhammer athletes," more people with a more balanced view of the hobby.

OR

More patchouli reeking hugbox hippies, less people who understand and can deal with the concept of a winner and a loser.

See? It rolls both ways.

 Just Tony wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Fewer mouth-breathing "pro Warhammer athletes," more people with a more balanced view of the hobby.

OR

More patchouli reeking hugbox hippies, less people who understand and can deal with the concept of a winner and a loser.

See? It rolls both ways.

No, not really. You only see one type of person railing against the idea of a narrative event, and it's not the narrative players.

 Just Tony wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Fewer mouth-breathing "pro Warhammer athletes," more people with a more balanced view of the hobby.

OR

More patchouli reeking hugbox hippies, less people who understand and can deal with the concept of a winner and a loser.

See? It rolls both ways.

Obviously, mine LANDED.

Wayniac wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Fewer mouth-breathing "pro Warhammer athletes," more people with a more balanced view of the hobby.

OR

More patchouli reeking hugbox hippies, less people who understand and can deal with the concept of a winner and a loser.

See? It rolls both ways.

No, not really. You only see one type of person railing against the idea of a narrative event, and it's not the narrative players.

Yeah, you only have them calling other people mouth breathers, that's so much better, isn't it?

I think this is partly why I have always just avoided 40k events in general, be they competitive or not, too many people not adaptable to just play to their opponent and enjoy the game regardless.

The exchange above highlights why a narrative event often doesn't work when extended to an open crowd. To many different ways of playing that often don't mesh well with each other. I play with a small group of people who share a desire to play more fluffy, more narrative events. It works for us because we are pretty aligned on what we want out of the event. What works for us, may be of zero interest to someone else, and may not work for someone else.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Fewer mouth-breathing "pro Warhammer athletes," more people with a more balanced view of the hobby.

OR

More patchouli reeking hugbox hippies, less people who understand and can deal with the concept of a winner and a loser.

See? It rolls both ways.

No, not really. You only see one type of person railing against the idea of a narrative event, and it's not the narrative players.

Yeah, you only have them calling other people mouth breathers, that's so much better, isn't it?

I think this is partly why I have always just avoided 40k events in general, be they competitive or not, too many people not adaptable to just play to their opponent and enjoy the game regardless.

The thing is, I didn't actually paint all tournament players with the same brush. I simply said there are fewer of the most annoying ones at more relaxed events.

People play in tournaments for *many* different reasons. Included among those players are those who tend to avoid narrative gaming, because it usually requires that you have friends and/or are capable of having a relaxed, social game with someone. These conditions are real issues for some people, and I think most of us have met examples at one time or another.

 gorgon wrote:
The thing is, I didn't actually paint all tournament players with the same brush.

I never said you did, but it's still a fundamentally divisive thing to say rather than an inclusive one, which feeds in to why I avoid 40k events entirely. On the competitive side you have the obnoxiously competitive people but then on the narrative side you have the people who are obnoxiously self righteous in insisting you have to play it their way.

Not wanting to devolve this thread into casual vs pro wargamer please.

one thing that I do need to consider for my events that I have always had to deal with is how to enforce more fluff based armies over the more ball busting builds designed to win tournaments.

Its not really about designing armies that are bad at winning games.

What it is is trying to broaden the power spike that is present in all GW games.

Power spike? Let me explain. Lets say you have a jar of 100 marbles and each marble represents an army build. Doesn't matter how good or bad it is, the marble is an army build.

The severe power spike of the bell curve of a GW game means that take 5 of those marbles out, and those are the builds you will predominantly see. Take another 5 of those marbles out and those builds can kind of keep up but require a lot of skill and luck to do well with. The other 90 marbles really have no chance.

I want to broaden that spike out so that there are say 25 marbles that can have a shot at doing well.

In a narrative event, I don't want it run like a tournament and I don't want that mindset present. Thats why we have tournaments, which I think is great.

Highlander is interesting. I'm not sure I'm sold on it though. The problem is that battleline in AOS have some pretty obscenely powerful models that have no business being battleline, so letting you take whatever battleline (fluff) but limiting elites is not exactly fair when some people have access to grossly powerful battleline.

More thinking needed.

I will say calling tournament players or powergamers mouth-breathers is not polite and definitely has no place in this discussion, but neither does attacking people for wanting to see more of the game and play in events that aren't dominated by goatboy BOLS spam lists either.

Wayniac wrote:
It would mean that people like Peregrine and his ilk would give it a wide berth so others could enjoy the game in a way that isn't "must try to win with the best units in the game"

Which is rather laughably wrong, if you've ever seen the armies I actually play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
I want to broaden that spike out so that there are say 25 marbles that can have a shot at doing well.

But this has nothing to do with narrative gaming. What you're describing is a competitive game with some balance fixes intended to produce a more interesting metagame, not a narrative game where the guiding principle is "what would the 'real' army be".

 auticus wrote:
N

Power spike? Let me explain. Lets say you have a jar of 100 marbles and each marble represents an army build. Doesn't matter how good or bad it is, the marble is an army build.

The severe power spike of the bell curve of a GW game means that take 5 of those marbles out, and those are the builds you will predominantly see. Take another 5 of those marbles out and those builds can kind of keep up but require a lot of skill and luck to do well with. The other 90 marbles really have no chance.

I want to broaden that spike out so that there are say 25 marbles that can have a shot at doing well.

Here are some brainstorms that may or may not work....

1. No identical units in an army
2. Force Org Charts by round
3. Each entrant randomly gets a unit type (Troop, elite, HQ) assigned to bring by faction up to XX points
4. Comp scores
5.Bring any army you want, people are then randomly assigned what army they play as
6. Strict army lists for each faction participating set by the GM

 Easy E wrote:
Here are some brainstorms that may or may not work....

1. No identical units in an army
2. Force Org Charts by round
3. Each entrant randomly gets a unit type (Troop, elite, HQ) assigned to bring by faction up to XX points
4. Comp scores
5.Bring any army you want, people are then randomly assigned what army they play as
6. Strict army lists for each faction participating set by the GM

IOW, the best way to play a narrative event is to play it as a list-building gimmick tournament, not as a narrative event.

 Peregrine wrote:


IOW, the best way to play a narrative event is to play it as a list-building gimmick tournament, not as a narrative event.

Not trying to defend Higlander here (as it can be used for a fluffy Eldar Biel Tan, but struggles massively with fluffy Tyranid builds), but you have posted only negative coments in this thread, so a question/request for you:

How would Peregrine organize a narrative WH40K event? What would be the main point of focus, what incentives/restrictions/guidelines/principles would you personally prepare for such event? Because it is trivially easy to complain while this tread is clearly meant for constructive brainstorming...