Battleplan: Stuff of Legends

Over on "The Grand Alliance" forums, I've seen a lot of discussion of what makes narrative play special and/or distinct from matched play.  One of the chronic problems I see cited by matched play folks is that narrative play is not conducive to pick-up games.  After seeing that stated over and over again, I thought that it seemed like an easy problem to overcome (I really hope that GW takes the opportunity to overcome it when GHB2 drops this summer).  So I have set out to design a narrative battleplan structure to make narrative play as low-prep as matched.

The Big Idea

I have an extensive background in story-gaming (games like Apocalypse World, Dread, Fiasco, and so forth).  Story-gaming is distinct from tactical gaming in that the objective is not to "win", but to tell a story together.  In D&D for example, the DM takes the role of author while the players take the role of player.  In a story game, all players share in the role of author.  In Warhammer, both players are just players.  So what I aim to do with this battleplan is to put players into the role of author as well, i.e. make them develop a narrative.

The Mechanics

The key mechanics I plan on using to shift players slightly into the role of author are:

Honor and Glory

Each player has the ability to award their opponent "Victory Dice" (they're like Victory Points, but dicier).  They can use them to shift the story in their preferred direction.  If they don't want their character to get blown up by artillery, they can offer their opponent Victory Dice to not do that.  If they want to see their opponent try to take the Watchtower, they can offer up a Victory Dice for it.  If their opponent does something that they thought was really fun and cinematic, they can reward it with a Victory Dice.  By giving each player some leverage over their opponent's actions (minor though it may be), they can work together to create the story they want to experience.

The Underdog

I stole this from the Clash of Empires battleplan.  It isn't a story-gaming tool so much as a balancing factor, but it does in this instance rely on the players working together to tell the story they want instead of mathematically analyzing the situation for asymmetry.  Basically, if both players agree that one of them is the Underdog, then the Underdog gets some extra Victory Conditions.

Victory Dice

I personally think that having some kind of Victory Points system makes for a more fun game than "win button" types of Victory Conditions (a "win button" would be something like killing the enemy's general to win).  Victory Points let you see the back and forth of the battle and also provide some measure of "closeness" instead of just having a winner and a loser.  Victory Dice are like Victory Points except that at the end of the battle, each player rolls all of their dice, and the player with more rolls of 4 or higher wins.  The reasoning behind this is to unbundle winning a little bit (kind of like Mario Party if you've played that before).  Instead of fixating on who is winning, you're really only improving your odds of winning, and then finding out what happens at the end.  I'm curious to see how this mechanic will be received.

Objectives and Motivations

The main problem I perceive with Narrative Play is that it requires that somebody have an idea for a story to tell.  Because nobody is forced into the role of author, it becomes less important.  Basically, all authorship occurs before the battle begins and is only done by the motivated player(s).  The Victory Conditions in this battleplan are comprised of two components, Objectives, and Motivations.  By combining them, you not only have a ton of possible battles to play (it ramps up quickly), but also end up with concepts like "Raze the Captives", or "Defend the Shrines", or "Sacrifice the Idols".  Each of these ideas might not immediately make much sense, but justifying them puts the players into the author's role.

I have also noticed that Narrative play is at its best when there is an asymmetry of goals.  Both sides are not going to realistically have the same exact motives in battle.  The Objectives and Motivations mechanic allows the players to have shared objects over which to battle in an organized fashion, but also grants them asymmetry to enhance the narrative experience.

One final cool thing about the Objectives and Motivations is that they can be easily expanded.  I'm working on (not finished with yet) special Objectives and Motivations for a selection of factions, but it's pretty easy for any interested party to come up with their own and build their own narrative without having to come up with a whole new battleplan.

I'm hoping to get a chance to try this out this weekend.  I'll surely be back with updates as it develops.  In the meantime, if anybody decides to try it out, please post comments and let me know how it went!