Playing out the Story

Forms of narrative development in roleplaying scenarios.

Some debate on how narratives can be achieved with the Tefr system have already occurred on this blog. The debate, I believe, stems from some confusion over what I mean by narrative. Playing out any scenario will result in some form of narrative, by their nature roleplaying is about cause and consequence. But I am talking about offering what seems to be a structured narrative, with a beginning, middle and end. This will most likely seem to be counter to any notion of freedom of choice on the part of the player characters, but bear with me; it is possible to use a progressive narrative that will still give the players freedom to act within the framework of the system and the constraints of the environment in which they find themselves.

  Delivering any kind of designed plot without forcing the players to follow a linear path will be more down to the style of the narrator, the players, and the scenario they are undertaking than the system itself. Some narrators simply create a situation, a place, a set of non-player characters, encounters and objects then let the player characters explore the environment at will; allowing the actions of the characters and the system itself to determine the sequence of play and the way the story develops. This is usually the simplest form, though it is not the same as gameplay, because it relies on the players to roleplay within the situation they create. With only a small amount of help and adaptability from the narrator, this can result in some quite fabulous narrative created amongst the players themselves.

   For example: the characters learn from a messenger that a nearby city may need mercenaries. They travel there and try to find work (or they don’t, end of story), but are offered the chance to help smuggle a child out of the city to avoid a powerful mage extracting his essence.


If they accept this work their narrative will turn one way, if they refuse, it will take a different direction.
The resolution will depend upon the character's actions following their initial decisions.

    The next form is to use an unconnected plot arc that occurs at the same time as the type explained in the previous paragraph. The characters learn snippets of this story as they are undertaking the scenario, but their actions cannot influence its outcome. However, clever delivery by the narrator can sometimes lead the players to believe that the characters are involved in this other plot arc, even though their actions and choices will not change it. Their actions will only change their immediate, and usually unconnected situation.

   The characters encounter an exhausted messenger and learn that his Duath and his army have been defeated by an army from Tukis. The Tukisi had a mage with them who could unleash incredible destructive forces. The messenger must get to the Duath’s home city and warn them that they are soon to be besieged.

    In this example the city will be besieged, even fall, whether the characters chose to help the messenger or not, but they feel somehow involved. If they deliver the message, they will meet people in the city, perhaps even get hired to try and smuggle a child out past the enemy lines. But the city will still be besieged, there is nothing they can do that will prevent that.

    A more complex narrative will involve storylines which the player characters can influence. This requires a degree of further adaptability on the part of the narrator. Generally, outcomes are based on the way the narrator believes the non-player characters should react to the actions of the player characters in the context of the plot arc. While most good narrators will write, or at least consider, a number of outcomes for various encounters and conjunctions in the scenario, if the story changes in some unpredictable fashion, then the narrator must adapt it on the fly. With this method there is always the risk that whole chunks of pre-planned story can be lost or altered. Either the narrator comes up with a secondary plan to bring the story back on track, or simply goes with the new direction and rewrites when there is time.

   After warning the people of the city, the characters are asked to try and smuggle a child out of the city, but they learn that the child is rumoured to be Aren, The Lord of Light re-born in human form, and is the reason the city is under siege. The Tukisi mage wants the child, believing he will gain god-like powers by capturing his essence. The child, however, knows a way to deactivate the magical artefact that allows the mage to wield such destructive forces.

   Thus the characters can now learn the means (if they ask the right questions) to directly influence the plot arc in several ways, how, or if, they use the knowledge, is down to them.

   Plots like this can often be nested within even wider plots, perhaps the war is on an imperial scale, perhaps whoever has the child can influence some even greater event. A good example of nested plots can be found in a fantasy book series. In general the same characters will feature in each book, and all the books are connected by some overarching global story, a story that progresses in some small way in each book, but only concludes in the last volume. The individual books also have their own complete narrative stories, and within each book, every chapter will have some independent narrative structure. There will also be sub-plots, and secondary characters that appear and play out over longer plot arcs that might cover several chapters of a book, or even several books of the series. It sounds like it ought to be complicated to implement, but for the most part such plot arcs are all things which can be delivered in discrete packets, and for the most part are self sustaining. For example if the player characters have an encounter with a non-player character, the plot element of this might simply be why that encounter occurred, or perhaps the non-player character is there to tell or let slip some piece of information that builds on some ongoing story, like the exhausted messenger detailed earlier. There is no reason why that same character might not reappear in a later scenario, developed in some way by the story, ready to deliver some new information, or perhaps the reason for his reappearance is as a result of the characters’ own actions.

   Using combinations of the above types of story delivery, it is possible to create arcs within arcs; arcs the players themselves have created; long and short arcs that cross over; subplots and backstory that combine to make a strong overall sense of narrative progression for the players. Nested plot arcs will allow them to feel like they are playing a key part in an ongoing story, raising the interest above that of a simple game, to a feeling of participation in the events of the world in which the narrative is set.

Please Feel Free to Cheat

If the system is getting in the way of the narrative, can overriding it be the way forward?

The Tefr roleplaying system serves three functions; firstly to give both players and narrator a framework within which to tell the story: the world, combat, magic skills, religion; secondly it provides believable limits not only for the characters and their foes, but for the world of Tefr itself. Limits can, and should, be scaled to fit the magnitude of the story. Lastly it is there to provide a mechanism by which random chance can help the evolution of the story; giving the players a sense of risk and excitement over the outcome of their character's actions. This last can also provide a sense of excitement to the narrator’s own decisions as well, though as I will explain, the narrator should be able to override a chance roll that they have made, if it will have a negative effect on the narrative flow (though the need should be rare).

Creating a narrative form of roleplaying using a system like Tefr is more about the will and style of the person running it, than the system itself. This was one reason why I chose to not to use the term game-master, referee, or dungeon-master; instead using the term narrator. I also deliberately avoided such terms as game and rules to indicate that the responsibility for determining how the events in a story-scenario unfold lies with the narrator and players. This leaves the system to be a guide and framework rather than an absolute set of rules. The thought of fudging the rules to ensure a better narrative might seem a little odd to some, something akin to cheating, but if it’s not a game but a story, how can you cheat at that?  Being able to use fudging wisely, and discreetly is a skill in itself; do it too often and the story risks becoming safe and dull, too obviously and the players will begin to lose the sense of excitement that unpredictability brings.

I’m not saying don’t use the system, after all it’s been created to help the way the story progresses while ensuring some events turn on chance to make the story unpredictable and exciting, but if the system gets in the way of the story, if a random outcome is undesirable to the narrative, then change the outcome, fudge the result, cheat; go on I give you permission.

The Shield

Once again in a fit of avoiding my MA work, I've managed to knock out a little bit of Tefr narrative. This time to head up the Prelude to Rhapsody chapter on combat. It was an odd one to work on, I think writing action is quite hard work, and I found myself editing it over and again. I'm fairly happy with the results for now, but it will doubtless alter again before publication. In this piece, I've also sprinkled a few italicised Tefr places and terms, to get the reader into the idea of using them with their own characters.


The Shield

The shield was still propped against his pack on the other side of the campfire, where Meres had left it the night before, and now Camore was lying right beside it, a long shaft, with goose-feather flights still sticking up from his back like a ridiculous pennant. It was hard to tell if he was dead, or just pretending, either way, there was no chance of getting to him, and finding out. Not without gaining a little pennant in the back himself.
  Meres looked away and cursed; the shield would have been the best protection he had against an unknown archer, but there was no help for that now. He kept his back to the tree, it was big enough to hide him from sight for now; he was fairly sure the arrow that caught Camore had come from just up the slope behind it.
  ‘Yaruk, are ye’right?’ he shouted across the clearing in Gal. If he was guessing correctly, their assailant was probably a local scout, who might know these forests, but nothing of the tongue of the Northlands. Annu Cheviel’s men had been close on their heels for three days now; hardly surprising, considering Meres and his companions had taken the stone of Uregh from his chasator. If they could just survive long enough to get it back to the priests at Parlin before Yearsend, it may yet prevent the whole of Shelir descending into bloody war.
  ‘Aye, I’m fine.’ Yaruk called back in the same language. ‘They shot Camore,’
Meres could just see the tips of Yaruk’s horns moving behind the broken log on the far side of the camp, no-doubt so could the archer.
  ‘I think there’s only one, or there’d be two of us lying with arrows in our backs. He’s probably trying to keep us pinned down long enough for reinforcements to arrive,’ said Meres.
  ‘What’s the plan then?’ said Yaruk, horns bobbing higher. If he, stuck his head up any further, he’d find an arrow between his eyes.
  ‘The plan –we rush him.’
  ‘Simple and straight to the point, eh Meres. Very well, I’m ready when you are.’
  ‘On the count of three then,’ said Meres. ‘One, two...’ he flung himself out from behind the tree, rolling once and regaining his feet at a run; if he was going to draw fire, he wasn’t going to make it easy. He’d been right about the archer sighting on Yaruk; Meres could see him in the scanty bushes, not four standards away, swinging his bow across in his direction. He pumped his legs beneath him, his sword swinging ready in his hand, he wasn’t going to reach the archer before he could shoot, but if he missed, Meres was going to make sure he wouldn’t get another opportunity.
  He saw the bow shake as the arrow flew towards him, and Meres instinctively ducked away, but it wasn’t enough; a heavy blow slammed his shoulder backwards, almost spinning him round. There was no pain yet, but he could feel the solidity of the arrow head, a sort of wrongness that shouldn’t have been there, grating as it was held firm in his flesh where it had penetrated the stiff hide of his armour. Too bad for the archer it was his left shoulder, and with barely a check to his momentum, Meres swung his sword back round and closed the gap. Meres saw the fear in the archer’s eyes, as he flung his bow ineffectively towards him, before clawing with desperate fingers to draw the sword hanging at his belt. At the last moment the archer tried to dodge the charge, but not fast enough, and the tip of Meres’s sword caught him across the midriff, tearing through leather and flesh, to leave a deep gash.
The archer gasped in pain, but he wasn’t beaten yet, he was quick to recover, and with his, now unsheathed asafr sword, he struck towards Meres’s vulnerable left side, only to have it met by a length of good Sayanay steel as Meres parried. With his opponent still off balance, Meres stepped past him and threw a another blow at the man’s back. The archer tried desperately to reach behind and parry, but his skill as a swordsman was inadequate, and always would be; Meres’s felt his sword bite deep, and his opponent stumbled forward, then fell to the ground. He, could hear the dying archer wheezing in rapid gasps, fighting for his last breaths.
  Before Meres could do more, there was a sudden yell from behind, and, turning to meet this new threat, saw Yaruk hurtling past, to sink his axe deep into the man’s chest. Finishing it all.
  Meres lowered his sword, feeling the first sharp pain clutch his shoulder, and turned to examine the arrow sticking from it.
  ‘Where were you? The bastard nearly nailed me,’ said Meres, putting a tentative finger on the wooden shaft, it was painful, but he’d been lucky, it looked like his armour had taken most of the damage.
  Yaruk pulled his bloodied axe free, and shrugged.
  ‘You didn’t say three,’ he said.

Backstory

Continuing with my short narratives in the Prelude to Rhapsody book, I've just completed a piece introducing the theme of background for the characters. I've attempted to make it work in such a way that a character might tell the others about his background, as well as create a small amount of backstory (about a  spider in a pot) which in itself contributes to, or appears to explain, the way that the character behaves.
Like the previous short narrative, it is still a little rough in places, I'll give them all a final go through before the book is published.

The Spider in a Pot

‘Squelch, squelch, slog, slog, is there no end to this god-forsaken swamp?’ Said Endingas. He liked complaining, he was good at it.
  The other three trudged on in a line through the mud in silence, as the thin dawnlight revealed more mud-flats and reed-beds in each direction.
  ‘And just look at the state of my boots, and it stinks as well. Stink stink, squelch, squ...’
  ‘It isn’t a swamp Mexotan.’ Kebri Soor’s low voice sounded from the front, his thick accent turning each a sound into au.
  ‘Swamp, marsh –same thing– A muddy, squelchy, stinky, struggle.’
  Kebri Soor picked a wide bulrush leaf and examined it.
  ‘You know nothing of struggle Mexotan, I grow up in the swamps of Earchamon, filled with mud dragons, stinging insects, deadly snakes and silk spiders. Leaving the hut in search of food is dangerous, Mexotan, but if we don’t, we starve. Then the rains come, and the waters rise, so we starve anyway.’ He tasted the sap from the leaf he was holding, spat, and threw it away. ‘My father, he was our herb man, he know what plants to eat, which ones heal, and which kill. This he teach me, he teach me to hunt and he teach me,’ he dropped his voice, ‘to gather spider silk.’
  The others watched him walking in the growing light, he was the most mysterious member of the group. He knew his plants, he was the best of them with a bow, but his creative ways of killing with the link knife he carried, the eery tattoos that decorated his face and lean body with strange spider-like symbols, coupled with his blood red eyes also made him the most intimidating.
  ‘When I am small,’ he said, ‘they begin training me to bring in the silk, they catch baby silk spider, and put it in a pot. I am to feed it, look after it. Each month I am to put my hand in the pot, and be bitten. It hurts, I am sick for two days. As the spider grow bigger, it’s bite grow stronger, the sting hurt more, so much pain,’ he rubbed his hand as if the memory alone had reawakened the old hurt, ‘but the more times it bite you, the more you are resisting, so by time it grow to full, the poison not kill. Then we can gather the webs, the spiders spin in the swamp. Sell the silk to the Eamani, but if the webs are poor, then we get small money and we starve.’ He stopped and turned round to look at Endingas. ‘When I am grown, the Eamani say I am gods gift, I cannot stay with my people, so I am outcast, I live in the swamp alone, hunt and find plants alone, each day avoid death alone. So Mexotan, with your boots, don’t tell me about struggle, and don’t tell me marsh is swamp.’
  He turned fluidly and resumed walking, the others shrugged and followed. Endingas opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and continued the trudge through the marsh in silence.