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Made in us
Clousseau




2017 has seen the emergence of public "narrative events" become more mainstream. I've seen narrative events, and narrative tournaments now.

My question is - to you - what is the difference between a narrative event, and a "tournament"?

EDIT: this is a question posed to introduce discussion in what a narrative event means to you, not me asking what it means.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/09 15:33:25


 
   
Made in us
Prescient Cryptek of Eternity





East Coast, USA

 auticus wrote:
2017 has seen the emergence of public "narrative events" become more mainstream. I've seen narrative events, and narrative tournaments now.

My question is - to you - what is the difference between a narrative event, and a "tournament"?



I haven't seen any events listed as narrative events. Can you give an example? The only thing I've seen are events which are essentially straight matched play tournaments with no real story elements.

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Completed Trades With: ultraatma 
   
Made in ca
Lord of the Fleet






Halifornia, Nova Scotia

The only narrative events I've ever really done or seen has been some sort of ongoing campaign. I couldn't imagine dropping by a store to have someone tell me about some forced story that somehow involves all the factions. It would feel forced to me.

I'm curious what these events are, but I'd rather run a campaign with people I know.

Mordian Iron Guard - Major Overhaul in Progress

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Made in us
Clousseau




Adepticon has them, NOVA had them. The NEO movement is doing regular events. Apparently there is a thing called Holy Wars that has some youtube broadcasts talking about narrative events this week.
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

The difference to me would be:

A) The entire event has a story behind it, for example tables are set up to be specific areas of a planet, and at the end of the day the planet's fate is decided.

B) An implicit agreement among the participants not to bring completely min/maxed competitive lists; maybe you see some strong lists, but typically not the same level of lists you see at a tournament; the focus is on more than winning every game and more for having enjoyable games that are memorable. As you are well aware, this is often the hardest thing to enforce and all it takes is one person showing up with a "power" list to ruin the event. But for me the key point of a narrative event is that all participants implicitly agree they might build strong lists, but will exercise some restraint when it comes to list building to not just bring the "most optimal" things allowed.

C) At least some form of "all painted" requirement (whether 3 colors, tabletop standard or what) to ensure that the event looks good.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/09 15:30:48


- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




So far I've noted that none of the narrative events seem to police lists, so min/max tournament lists do show up (though its not as common as a traditional tournament).
   
Made in us
Prescient Cryptek of Eternity





East Coast, USA

 auticus wrote:
Adepticon has them, NOVA had them. The NEO movement is doing regular events. Apparently there is a thing called Holy Wars that has some youtube broadcasts talking about narrative events this week.


So... if Adepticon and NOVA have them, surely they have some sort of event description that could answer any questions you might have? I'm assuming that a "tournament" is matched play, fixed points, etc. I.e., "standard 40k". I'm assuming that narrative events include elements from open and narrative play. Games might not necessarily be balanced and might favor one side versus the other. Narrative play could mean literally anything. It's probably best to look at the event descriptions for any specific narrative events you're interested in.

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Completed Trades With: ultraatma 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




I'm trying to discuss what narratiive events mean to the collective community.

If you ask this question you'll get a bunch of different answers.

Yes I can read NOVA and Adepticon event descriptions and the NEO's have their own descriptions as well.

This is more of an open discussion of what it means to you, for clarification.
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

I think you'll not get a real answer; you'll likely get the usual suspects showing up and talking about "people taking bad lists" and "casual at all cost players pretending their way is superior"

- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




Well hopefully it can generate actual discussion that is worthwhile. I am a narrative event organizer and I like to hear others' input on what they think a narrative event is to them.

I'm not interested in having troll commentary nor will I respond to people that jump in discussing that kind of thing.
   
Made in us
Prescient Cryptek of Eternity





East Coast, USA

 auticus wrote:
Well hopefully it can generate actual discussion that is worthwhile. I am a narrative event organizer and I like to hear others' input on what they think a narrative event is to them.

I'm not interested in having troll commentary nor will I respond to people that jump in discussing that kind of thing.


Fair. To me, a narrative event is pretty much any event with some sort of story element that impacts game play. Past that, the sky is the limit. I used to run a GW shop and here are a few non-"traditional tournament" events we ran.

1. Tanksgiving - Everyone brings as many Vehicles as they can field. Mega battle ensues. There is no real rhyme nor reason. It's just an excuse to field every tank you own. Tyranid players were allowed to bring anything big.
2. Tournament of Champions - Each player brings one unnamed character with a limit of 200 points. They square off in a standard bracket, starting 24" away from each other.
3. The Great Pumpkin Smash - Each player got to bring 250 points worth of models with no force org. Full units. We stuck a ton of candy corn pumpkins on the table. They were AV12 with 3HP each. If you killed one, you got to eat it. Whoever smashed the most pumpkins won a prize.
4. Death Race 40k - Each player gets to bring one bike (or equivalent, we had a list of options). You'd line up and the goal was to get to the finish line. Movement was limited to 12" per movement phase. The course was like an obstacle course with all sorts of bad things that would pop out including a Carnifex. Get too far ahead and everyone behind you targets you with shooting attacks. It was brutal, but quick and fun.
5. We also ran a couple of Cityfight/Planetstrike events where the outcome of Game 1 dictated the mission and attacker/defender status for Games 2+.
6. We played one "standard tournament" with a twist. You'd start with a legal, 6th edition style 2000 point single force org. Then, you could field up to 1500 points in any combination from that list for Games 1, 2 and 3. The twist was that if a unit fully died, you had to cross it off your list for the rest of the event. A lot of players had a lot less than 1500 points remaining by game 3. It was a lot of fun. One guy was down to a single Dreadnought for game 3. That thing wouldn't die.

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Made in us
Powerful Phoenix Lord





To me, it's pretty simple.

A Narrative Event should be based around a story - hopefully and interesting or intriguing one (even better if this generates subsequent events and a long successful series can tell an evolving story). Things I would want or look for:

1) Beautiful tables. Not random scattered terrain...but tables built to support the story or scenario. Bonus points for assymetric design, elevation and environmental effects. Bridges, elevated platforms, walkways - tactical issues which must be solved by the group involved. Brought three superheavy tanks to an acid ocean board which is covered in spanning walkways? Tough bananas.

2) A scenario which has absolutely nothing to do with chasing random tokens around a board. Zero room for Maelstrom-based lame game play. However, a really good custom scenario should be thoroughly play-tested and abused to make sure it's worthwhile and balanced (or at the very least meets the expectation of the designers).

3) Assymetric games. 2000 points holding off 5000 points etc. The game should represent something more akin to historical wargaming, where forces and events are never ever equal and simple. You might be outnumbered, but your entire goal is to hold up the enemy for X turns, or reinforcements only arrive on turn 4 out of 6 etc.

4) A Game Master who is narrating and producing the event - making decisions for gameplay, and willing to adjust the game on the fly if necessary. People interested in a Narrative Event are more likely just that...narrative gamers and aren't interested in a 45 minutes obliteration of their opponent. If one side is getting trounced because of the army lists or the player skill, etc...don't hesitate to bring a Thunderhawk with reinforcements etc. (if it fits the scenario). If people travel for this event, they probably want to get properly stuck into the game and not accidentally shorten all of their fun by an unexpected trouncing. The Game Master should also have secret information which will impact the game/story/narrative --- everybody likes a bit of surprise. "Oh, you wiped out that Eldar force? They were keeping this massive Greater Daemon in check so now he's out - surprise suckas!" etc.

5) Spectacle. Painted models, painted terrain. Hell, if you have time - plan the event based around only a certain number of armies -- let people build to join, etc.

6) This is optional and probably the hardest part. A scenario/narrative event is always going to be better with a narrow selection of armies. There is no proper and good way to involve all of the 40K races in a narrative event...even GW can't do it (their attempts are admirable but always terrible). If you have time before the event - announce this early. A lot of folks play multiple armies and should be able to come up with something..or at the very least borrow an army. It makes the story 10x more interesting and viable. While we're at it - don't allow special named characters unless they make sense.

7) Design the stream of games (if there is one) to determine the next games. Players actually accomplishing stuff in one game which helps or hinders them in the next game is always awesome. This also allows the GM or designers to create that evolving story. If you're doing a couple of games in a weekend/event --- have 5-6-7 games designed as results depending on how the initial game(s) goes.

   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

That's another thing, most narrative events are not open to the general public, because it's hard to incorporate everything. A good example would be a Badab War campaign; people would either have to already have some of the forces involved, or opt to build them, but everyone would know that in order to participate you need to have Marines and/or Guard in specific factions. The issue with such a thing is very few people are willing to build an entire army for a campaign, even if said campaign was going to last a few months, even if the result would be amazing. So you'll end up with people wanting "alternate history" where they can bring their Dark Angels or Ultramarines or trying to shoehorn in Orks or T'au just so they don't feel like they can't play.

Also I absolutely agree on having a game master (who often is also participating) to set thing sup and not being reluctant to ad-hoc adjust things if one force is winning or if something didn't go right.

Again the biggest issue here is logistics, the fact that it has to be basically planned out, and the fact that so much of it is not "symmetrical balance" Eternal War/Maelstrom missions so that people are going to be reluctant to play unless they really want to get into it. Like I personally would love a Badab War campaign, but I know nobody here would be even remotely interested in it unless it was shoehorned to allow anything

- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




We did the badab war campaign with my planetary crusade system (link to the site that houses that)

We had every force in the game on a giant map. Badab was the setting but the sector map was big enough to incorporate three full factions.

It was a lot of fun.
   
Made in gb
Mekboy Hammerin' Somethin'





Dorset, England

I don't think you can have a particularly satisfying narrative event with people turning up with random, unrestricted armies in a tournament setting.

My ideal 40k narrative event would draw a lot from historical gaming.

1: The players meet up and decide the event or story we are trying to recreate/ tell.
2: Research/ agree the order of battle and terrain plus where we will use a bit of a dramatic license.
3: Work out if we need any special rules to create any particular campaign/ battlefield events.
4: Review collections to see what can be used/ adapted. Work out who will supply which elements of each force, deadlines etc.
5: Game day! Draw names from a hat or otherwise work out who commands what.
6: Play out the scenarios/ multiple linked scenarios and see if you get the 'historical' result or if Macharius ends up in a ditch somewhere :-p
7: Write up the day and post on Dakka with lots of pictures!

Cheers
Kroem


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Almost every issue of WI has a section about people who have planned and painted armies and terrain for a special 1 off narrative events so they do exist! Also ref that Blanchitsu campaign they did this year.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/11/09 17:29:40


 
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

If it's a true narrative even the story trumps everything so either restricted lists/choices

(or some clever writing to explain why bob and his imperial guard are showing up on a necron tomb world under attack by orks. If it's an all comers event they'll need to have a plausible reason for every possible force)

terrain/boards done to fit with the theme

be prepared for unbalanced (in terms of points) games, maybe a heroic defense against unending enemy units, maybe a snatch and grab by a small force against a larger one, maybe you start game 2 with only the forces that didn't die in game 1 etc

 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




a narrative event should also play with power level instead of points. This way people can play with all those cool but useless looking models that suck up points. such as medics, banners, vox casters.

But in general I agree with the above along with the friendly agreement this is NOT a tournament where people are trying to steamroll each other.
   
Made in us
Snord




Midwest USA

A tournament is an event where players come together to compete against each other in an attempt to determine who is the better player. In modern wargaming, this is done by taking the most "points efficient" list and playing against other players. Painting standards may or may not exist, and there is usually prize support.

A Narrative Event is one where the story is the focus of the event. Players are there to either reenact a historical/pre-published battle, or create a new story from the games played in the event. Players play with each other, and the focus of the individual battles is not on the victory of the game, but rather victory in the army's objectives. Usually, painting standards are higher for these games, and there will often be custom scenarios that are there to aid or drive the story. Good times and awesome games are the motivation of the players, rather than any prize support or bragging rights.
   
Made in ca
Preacher of the Emperor






The only narrative event I've ever been a part of was a straightforward unstructured league where we were told a system had newly emerged from a warp storm and our respective armies were sent for disperse reasons to claim, raid, investigate or otherwise carry out set missions in system in order to claim the fabulous prize somewhere in the system.

To that end, we needed to each write a little narrative blurb about our army, who the principal characters involved were and what they were after.

Missions were in the same vein as the recent 40k campaign, each week would have a mission involving the conflict moving to a different planet in the system with a different layout and set of objectives (capture a comms tower and hold it, take on an opponent with half your army flanking in reserves, etc) and after every battle write a little narrative blurb about what they did in between. Victories and writing got you points to spend on upgrades to your general.

And the whole thing ended with a big multi-faction battle royale as everybody tried to scramble to get to the center of a large map with the prize: a gateway to the Black Library.

   
Made in us
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought




San Jose, CA

 Captain Joystick wrote:
The only narrative event I've ever been a part of was a straightforward unstructured league where we were told a system had newly emerged from a warp storm and our respective armies were sent for disperse reasons to claim, raid, investigate or otherwise carry out set missions in system in order to claim the fabulous prize somewhere in the system.

To that end, we needed to each write a little narrative blurb about our army, who the principal characters involved were and what they were after.

Missions were in the same vein as the recent 40k campaign, each week would have a mission involving the conflict moving to a different planet in the system with a different layout and set of objectives (capture a comms tower and hold it, take on an opponent with half your army flanking in reserves, etc) and after every battle write a little narrative blurb about what they did in between. Victories and writing got you points to spend on upgrades to your general.

And the whole thing ended with a big multi-faction battle royale as everybody tried to scramble to get to the center of a large map with the prize: a gateway to the Black Library.



^-I totally agree with this-^

My local group is currently trying to figure out something along the lines of this.

   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






Games Workshop seem to run plenty of narrative events at Warhammer World. For example:
https://warhammerworld.games-workshop.com/warhammer-40000-campaign-weekend-the-tenebris-system/

You can see that you need to register ahead of time as a specific alliance, and there are army list restrictions in place. Each game will be a different mission, revealed on the day and you are encouraged to change your army to suit the mission.

There's also no one "winner". There are several different awards available, with sportsmanship being one of the most important, along with background and painting.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




If you're going to run a good narrative event I think everything about it has to be focussed purely on the narrative part. That means the armies used, the units that make up those armies, the tables, and so on. As such, I don't think a narrative event that has random participants works very well at all. Regardless of how well run it is, the story part of it will usually fall flat, which defeats the point of a narrative event for me.

So if you're going to run a narrative event I think it really has to be done at a very local level to be a "proper" narrative event.
   
Made in us
Tail-spinning Tomb Blade Pilot





Michigan

well for instance as far as I can tell the adepticon 40k narrative event is a badab war campaign. meaning you can only bring space marine armies from the badab war.

Necrons - 6000+
Eldar/DE/Harlequins- 6000+
Genestealer Cult - 2000
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Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

 supreme overlord wrote:
well for instance as far as I can tell the adepticon 40k narrative event is a badab war campaign. meaning you can only bring space marine armies from the badab war.


For a public thing that's going to be very limited unless, as I said above, they skirt around with the narrative. It's very unlikely that people are going to have Fire Hawks, Fire Angels, Exorcists, Red Scorpions, Astral Claws, Mantis Warriors, Lamenters, etc. as their primary army.

- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in gb
[SWAP SHOP MOD]
Killer Klaivex







I've attended a few at Warhammer World in the past. Generally speaking, it consists of an event pack with a storyline given out beforehand, extra army lists/units devised for the purpose of the campaign, and an underlying story which is shaped as the campaign progresses. You usually buy a ticket for a specific faction, instead of just an entry ticket.Your faction either wins or doesn't. The emphasis isn't on 'winning' so much as having a good time, because there's no individual rankings or prizes.

In practice, this translates to updates in between games as to what's happening in the sector (a sort of story update), unforseen advantages/disadvantages springing from story developments (so one team might suddenly find they've been ambushed and have to completely deploy before the other fellow, or get an extra unit or something), games of different sizes (everyone usually brings three or four army lists of 500 point increments), 'man of the match' upgrades for stand out heroes that carry on in between games, one play strategem/reroll cards distributed at the start of the event, etcetc.

The goal at the end of the day is to tell a story, have games that are a bit different in flavour to the normal ones, and make some new friends on your team's faction. Sometimes the extra unit options let you model something unique in advance (I've seen some great Ork units) which is fun to do and play against. They usually last two to three days of solid gaming, and generally give a much better experience than a straight up/down tournie. They do have to be well planned and prepared though.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/11 11:02:24



 
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

I wonder how WHW deals with the inevitable "powergamer shows up with a killer list" that invariably happens with any sort of narrative event.

- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in gb
[SWAP SHOP MOD]
Killer Klaivex







I never ran into a single one. Tough lists, sure. But never the eldar/allied tau jetbike cheese, or suchlike. People go to these things for a relaxing weekend. The minute you take away individual rankings and prizes, you take away the reason to be overly competitive. Even utterly stomping your opponent means nothing individually, because it's based upon the team results that things happen.

In that sort of scenario, the cheese tends to stay at home. There's just no point to it. Not to mention that if somebody actually did that, the events team could quite easily just start dictating that that specific player had half a dozen handicaps because their supply lines screwed up or something (and likely would). Because its storyline based, the organisers can justify anything.


 
   
Made in us
Flashy Flashgitz





I've not heard of any narrative events, but they sound pretty awesome. People need to come to grips with the fact that 40k will never be balanced, and work on making it fun instead.
   
Made in us
Douglas Bader






Niexist wrote:
People need to come to grips with the fact that 40k will never be balanced, and work on making it fun instead.


Part of making the game fun involves making it balanced.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Ketara wrote:
In that sort of scenario, the cheese tends to stay at home. There's just no point to it. Not to mention that if somebody actually did that, the events team could quite easily just start dictating that that specific player had half a dozen handicaps because their supply lines screwed up or something (and likely would). Because its storyline based, the organisers can justify anything.


IOW, "the organizers decide who wins each game, and there's no point in playing". If that's what a narrative event means then narrative events need to die.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slipspace wrote:
If you're going to run a good narrative event I think everything about it has to be focussed purely on the narrative part. That means the armies used, the units that make up those armies, the tables, and so on. As such, I don't think a narrative event that has random participants works very well at all. Regardless of how well run it is, the story part of it will usually fall flat, which defeats the point of a narrative event for me.


This. "Narrative event" and the open-invite, all-day-gaming structure of a tournament are mutually contradictory concepts. A successful narrative game requires the players to spend time before the game creating a story to suit the particular armies involved, choosing appropriate scenario rules, etc, and then repeating the process before the next game based on the results of the first one. A tournament-style event has to accept any army, and use standardized scenario rules that can accommodate any random pairing of armies and are written before the event begins. So yeah, in theory you can have some kind of "story" behind the event, but they're inevitably terrible. Nobody wants to hear your awful fluff about how the Tau and DE and Tyranids are teaming up to beat the space marines while simultaneously fighting off a chaos invasion.

So, in reality, what happens with a narrative event is that you have a tournament where two things probably happen:

1) The event has a ton of toxic "casual at all costs" players who will whine about "powergamers". IOW, anyone who brings an army that can beat theirs and disrupt their carefully-crafted "story" about how their awesome Mary Sue space marine chapter is the bestsest ever and wins every battle. These complaints will usually have very little to do with the background fiction of the IP, and a lot to do with an assumption that "narrative" inherently means "deliberately make bad list-building choices".

2) The mission design will be full of "story" rules that are really just badly-designed tournament scenarios. You'll get stuff like awarding extra VP for killing units in melee, because this is the designated melee mission regardless of the fact that the Tau army has zero interest in melee combat and the resulting attempt to win the game is blatantly against the fluff. These rules will usually be poorly balanced and awkward, and the winner of the game will often have more to do with the balance effects of the mission design than the decisions made by the players.

Sounds like fun, right? If you're going to do an open-invite event with the format of a tournament then accept that you're running a tournament. Don't make it a "narrative event" that is really just a badly-run tournament. And if you want to have a successful narrative game then arrange individual games with like-minded players, where you have the time and space to do it right.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/11/12 01:28:17


There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
Made in gb
[SWAP SHOP MOD]
Killer Klaivex







 Peregrine wrote:

IOW, "the organizers decide who wins each game, and there's no point in playing". If that's what a narrative event means then narrative events need to die.

That wasn't even remotely what I said. Try reading it again.


 
   
 
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