There has been much said in the last few years of making the results interesting from dice rolls. There has been a really good micro-cast about creating a story from the results of a roll. Creating a narrative is what an RPG is best at; while a board game always has an emergent story to it, normally it has nowhere near the depth of an RPG. A large issue is that people are trying to create a narrative from nothing preceding it.
A basic declaration of “I swing my sword at this orc” is effective but it has little rising action for the narrative. Evoking more of a cinematic sensation with something akin to “As I feel the orcs blade through my leather armor I dance behind him and stab at his back,” allows for more of a possibility of resulting interesting action. It allows for some interplay between the player and the GM in order to have a description of what is happening.
This is from both sides of the proverbial screen as well. If all of the monsters that the players are going up against in a fight act like they’re a bunch of identical robots then it becomes butchery because there is no connection to the opponent. If you’re fielding three hill giants then have a distinct characteristic for each of them, one with a slight limp, the last of them with an evil goatee — this provides some differentiation and has a little bit of characterization.
This can slow down a combat a bit, but the added buy-in helps mitigate that. A game that you’re trying to get through as fast as possible is a sign that things need to be reworked or an extra session scheduled. I’ve had better luck personally when I’m trying to describe the actions of what a few squads of stormtroopers are doing to attack a party than when I just have them attack.
Doing this creates a descriptive burden on the entire gaming group, and might get the more cynical to make a few jibes about LARPing, but it helps create a deeper experience. Spreading this burden to the players as well as the GM lessens the on the spot story telling that the GM has to create as well as leading to an improved likelihood of leaving the path that the adventure started out upon.
Describing actions with a narrative flair creates a back and forth with the group and allows for what is on the table to grow beyond it. To some this is just good roleplaying, which it is, but it isn’t self-evident from the rules or in most GM sections. A descriptive lead up to action needs to be rewarded with a descriptive exit to the action. This is where things along the lines of Skill Monkey’s divinations come into play.
This is a ground up approach to building a narrative into the sessions and adventures you are on. From the top down it can help when both are used as it allows for the whole session to have a narrative aspect to it instead of the narrative only happening around the players’ actions.
As a GM, having a player describe what they’re doing is a great thing for allowing better communication and creation of the story outside of just yourself. Depending on your GM style, you can have a main idea and a few contingencies for when the players decide to actually play, but you aren’t actively getting explicit feedback on your ideas. By getting players to create the narrative with you, you can incorporate ideas that they generate, in turn impressing upon the players that they’re more in tune with the adventure, as well as giving them a conformation bias allowing you to give the story a twist much more easily.
Using descriptive narrative is a skill that few seem to practice in day-to-day life and when participating in an RPG they are rusty and timid. As a GM I’ve found I need to lead the way by being more expressive with what I do at the table with both how the area that they’re going into looks and how the NPCs act. A shopkeeper is no longer just a font of supplies but a miserly curmudgeon looking to fleece the party. This is a gateway for me to become more comfortable with hamming it up, like some great players I’ve played with, and it also allows the players I GM for the social license to ham it up, too. I’ve led my groups with rising action into attacks and then a narrative conclusion just from what happened from the dice.
I’m going to be starting up the search for my Lepskin Sector game at the end of the month. I’m going to be working with the players in it to try increasing the narrative, allowing them to bring themselves and their ideas into it as well as my own ideas for the shadowy realm of NPCs.
This is one of my goals for the group, as well as to have fun.
