Thread by @rdonoghue

I think we make our lives difficult in RPGs by using “hard choices” a yardstick of success. They’re fine, but treating them (rather than interesting, good or telling choices) as the gold standard suggests a very narrow world of play.

(That we focus on choice rather than situation or opportunity extra special bullshit, because fuck your trolley problem, but that is a much longer rant.)

But because I can’t stop myself: choices are meaningful after they’re MADE.

But PRESENTING a choice is a force, and forces are tools of misdirection and manipulation.

If your GM is a jerk, the Apocalypse will not save you, it will just make it your fault.

And I note: if you view GMing as akin to performance, there is NOTHING WRONG with misdirection and manipulation because that’s entertainment, so long as everyone is on board.

But when they aren’t? That’s where the ugly happens.

(I feel strongly that running a game has a lot in common with running a con, which is mostly fine, but does hit occasional anti-patterns like how we respond to being conned)

All a little bit on my mind as I thought back on choices that have stuck with me as a player, and while many might have been hard in some abstract way, very few *stuck* with me as hard.

Partly because given A&B I will find E. Partly because the way I play tends to simplify these decisions for me (in almost any game, the first thing I look for is how to take other people’s consequences onto me. I am, by instinct, a narrative tank)

And now I’m pondering narrative tanking vs. narrrative healing and narrative DPS and damn if the model doesn’t hold up disturbingly well.

Narrative DPS: taking action to impact the world.

Narrative healing: taking action to help make sure everyone else can keep acting.

Narrative tanking: sponging up fictional consequences so everyone else can keep acting.

(MOAR DOTS)

The more I think about this, the more appalled I am at how well it works for explaining so many things. Like why all DPS tends to be awesome until it explodes in fire, but too many healers & tanks can’t get anything done.

After a remark by @Karallon I add:

Narrative Crowd Control: makes small changes to the world that create more opportunities for play. (Not always necessary, but well suited for games where players can author content)

Sidebar: I really like talking about roles rather than type, because it is very far from absolute. Different players and characters can step into different roles with different degrees of fluency. There are easier and harder combinations, but those make the model richer.

Which is to say, “Priests are healers” is a dull model, but “Priests are really strong at healing, but can do DPS, and I once knew a Priest Tank, and that dude was off the hook” is fun, and extends into many things.