Emergent Narrative vs Static Narrative

I added a channel in the Discord to chat about these emails and it’s been really insightful.

A lot of folks having some really big and cool ideas.

While we were discussing the fiction of board games vs RPGs, it occured to me (and I’m sure I’m far from the first) that BGs could be divided into two camps – emergent fiction and static fiction.

Emergent fiction would be games like Eldritch Horror, Dead of Winter, or Merchants and Marauders. These are games where the “story” develops through play, the events acting almost like prompts for the players to construct the whole narrative in their heads.

Static fiction would be more like Heroquest, The Arkham Horror Card Game, or Mice and Mystics. I would argue they have stronger stories, but the player interaction matters less. Each has premade scenarios with a pretty linear fiction. The players actions only matter in so much that they need to overcome the challenges to unlock the next piece of fiction.

Oddly, when it comes to board games, I think I prefer the latter? There’s little replayability and it feels perhaps like a more passive form of entertainment, but I like killing goblins and finding out what’s in the room.

(That said, I do really enjoy Dead of Winter and think it also does a great job of generating a story through play).

Really, I think my big takeaway from this is that I need to play more board games and see what stories develop…

Talk soon,

-James

PS. If you want to get into the convo about THIS blog pst, you can find the discord here, or leave a comment below.