Thread by @qh_murphy

OK, a thing has been bubbling in my head re TTRPG design lately:

Narrative drive vs narrative opportunism.

First: disclaimers!

I get, uhm...really fatigued with "grand unified theories" in TTRPg design - diff games, diff brains - so I deal with lenses...

If it helps you see, dope! If not, darn, but I accept that.

I wont be spending a lot of time arguing about the validity of the lens, but happy to talk about the particulars of the lens. I am OK if you don't "get it"....maybe next time!

OK, disclaimers done.

So: Narrative drive and narrative opportunism!

Narrative drive: the systems and rewards that encourage a player to move towards and create certain situations and events.

Narrative opportunism: systems and rewards that encourage you to wait for specific events/situations.

Narrative drive is where a system is encouraging certain play to happen, driven by those in the game. Drive helps set direction and overall style of play.

Drive can occur at the macro level: The presence of a combat chapter tells you that fighting is a thing that you are encouraged to do.

It can also take place at the micro: being rewarded for a certain position in combat encourages you to seek that position out.

Too little narrative drive and players don't know where to go or how to proceed. Without proper encouragement, every action looks as good as every other action.

Too much narrative drive and you impinge on player agency.

A lot of the joy in playing TTRPGs is from being able to choose an approach or direction and being able to express that choice to a reasonable degree of effectiveness.

Strong but narrow drives discourage expressiveness.

I have so much more to say about the role of narrative drive in games, but I am gonna flip over to narrative opportunism.

If narrative drive is "do this", narrative opportunism is "watch for this".

Opportunism rewards situational awareness and offers variation in events.

Narrative opportunities are triggers. "When this happens, you can do this" when it works, it feels cool, like you are diverting the stream of normal events to your favor.

Rather than working to establish events, you modify or react to events that are happening.

When done right, good opportunism offers a tight sense of interplay. It let's players "fight back" against the system in a way that supports the fiction.

But, uh, here is the bad news. Narrative opportunism is really hard to design well.

Here is the thing: narrative opportunitism is dependent on situations happening *to* players, and not all situations are equal in frequency or importance to the fiction.

Imagine I have the same type of bonus for these situations in an action sci fi TTRPG:

- shooting a laser
- recovering when you are thrown out of an airlock

Same bonuses but one situation happens more often than the other.

It's a delicate balancing act to find interesting situations and cool rewards for meeting those situations.

The other, bigger problem? The brain can only remember so many of these opportunities at one time.

Raise your hand if you've ever forgotten a situational modifier or effect.

The more of these you have to remember, as well as juggle rules and oh yeah the fiction itself, the harder it is to make use of narrative opportunities.

One way to fix a narrative opportunity mechanic is to turn it into a drive.

Exhibit A: ye olde classic ranger. Classic design was a narrative opportunity - whenever you fight your favored enemy, you get dope bonuses. Great, but the rest of the time....oof.

Either we force the narrative to have that favored enemy a certain part of the time to validate the character choice or we let it be RNG on when it is even going to be used.

Enter the Modern Ranger (can we make this a magazine please?).

The modern rangers favored mechanic is generally a "prey" mechanic, which isa narrative drive where you choose who you are focused on. Carries much of the same flavor, but is way more useful and less prone to uselessness.

I think my favorite way to make narrative opportunities cool is to make them narrow but big. Now, while I think changing opp to drive is a general good fix, ill say that this one is *my style* and YMMV. You might not put this in a rulebook, but might do this in a home game.

Narrow but big: try to make a narrative opportunity that is pretty niche, but when hit the bonus you get is so absurd you are almost guaranteed to rock it.

Making the reward bigger imprints it your mind so you are less likely to forget when that moment comes...

It is also a subtle way to encourage players to drive play towards niche situation.

Using "thrown out of an airlock" opp, if the bonus is good enough, I might provoke enemies to make the opportunity happen:

"What are you going to do? Throw me out an airlock? Do it, you coward"

Wrapping up: I think its useful to give players a useful drive or fe in each arena if your game, while you try to limit the narrative opportunities they have to remember.

I have more to say on this, but work calls!

Thanks for reading.

(Also, if you have a game there getting thrown out an airlock is a very frequent occurrence, please share it with me! I have this jonesing for it now, lol)