Fiction First doesn’t exist

Fiction first is not what you think it is.

Well, it does, but as modern designers baits hooked us up, my bait served the same higher purpose: I want to show you a little, hidden marketing trick.

DISCLAIMER: read this with the appropriate amount of irony and criticism. Some of the games I name are amongst my favorite games ever. But I learnt how to spot a well written lie.

Art by PILVIUS ART

The basics: most mechanics we use in tabletop RPGs exist for very few reasons, mostly a twisted sort of “adding fluff to justify a mistake”.

Think about what weapons do in adventuring games: they used to deal d6 damage, and we can now appreciate that fact. Why buying a sword if it costs 10 times a staff and deals the same damage? Well, because a sword is an iron thing, because it gives you status, because it allows you to be a different hero than the staff-wielding one.

But then, someone started adding more d8s as hit dice, quickly swapping to d10s; so you needed more damage, thus you added d8 to weapon damage; now you needed to justify the difference between a wizard and a warrior, and you need to make d4 and d10 weapons… Then you start scaling hit dice, and you need more of ‘em, as you need more damage.

Do you get it?

It’s the bad old excuse: create a problem to sell the solution.

Fiction first manifesto is somewhat true, but not in the way we got used to. Here’s the most basic function of this definition:

You say something within the fiction (in game), you then spot the mechanics required to perform that action, if any, then you reconcile with the game flow and so forth.

Ok, let’s see: I enter the tomb, sword in hand. I describe my actions as I delve down the ruin, the game master reacts to my descriptions and knows a trap lies ahead, along with a goblin ambush.

He spots the hear noise procedure, since he must define how the monsters react.

Assume the die says they’ve heard me. He gives me clues about the noises ahead, so I slowly ready my sword and approach them. The GM tells me about some ropes on the ceiling and a few unstable rocks.

The first goblin wants to stop me from advancing, so the GM roleplays it. I roleplay accordingly: the GM can decide it’s enough or that he might use the reaction roll mechanic to see if and why the goblin ever reacts violently, since the situation is driving us in unexpected directions.

He rewards my attempt with a “bonus” o my favor. Assume the roll results in a very bad result for me: the goblin screams and attacks, SO the GM uses the attack roll procedure (let’s skip boring initiative).

Now, assuming I’m still alive, I describe as I run towards the ropes, hitting them hard to let the rocks above fall down to squash the goblins; the GM spots the ability roll, or might just judge the situation based on my 125 points in strength.

Well, let’s call it a day.

What happened?

👉 I describes my actions

👉 GM spots the right mechanic or reacts with a coherent decision based on the game world

👉 We get back to the scene

This is how I (and something like 2.000.000 players) played for 20 years and keep on playing, more or less.

No particular attention to details, might not be particularly suited to cover some styles, but in essence…

Well, that’s the point of the whole post. I could have written hundreds of words ago, but I wouldn’t have been that relevant on the long run.

Here’s the BIG truth hidden behind a much bigger lie: fiction first is how you are supposed to play a roleplaying game, since 1974.

Curiously enough, this perfect match is far less obvious in those games using this marketing strategy as a trademark.

“If you do it, do it”

Yeah, pretty much what we do anyway.

We might discuss about the need of taking flavourful actions over simpler approaches: but still, this MIGHT be a valid topic, still not valid enough to state a blatant lie about fictions first or fiction after.

We might argue about the fact that Pathfinder and similar builds often bypass players’ creativity over-codifying rules, to the point you don’t even roleplay your intimidation, but you go straight to the roll.

We might argue that Blades in the Dark is not any more fiction first than BX DnD; actually, you have so many modeling mechanics that you often get lost and forget how much beauty lies in that game, far beyond the repetitive and often redundant recommendations about being good players, good GMs, handling turf and more.

We end up talking about “correct gaming” and forget what “actual gaming” means. We play “fiction first” with strict, codified raw materials (P… ehm… b… ehm… T… A…) and ignore how roleplaying IS essentially telling actions and reacting to them using the rules we have (if any).

That’s creating the (mostly false) issue (bad GMs, mechanical abstraction) to sell the solution (hey, this is true fiction first and if you play as we say, everything will be fine!).

False, nerdy friends. Lie.

If you are a boring person in DnD and Vampire, you’ll be a boring person in Dungwon World as well.

If you are a blatantly aggressive player in Mage, you’ll be a blatantly aggressive player in BitD.

Having more rules telling you how to “fiction first” won’t improve your wish to just sit down and have fun. They will only make your hobby more cumbersome.

Read the disclaimer again: now I use Clocks in Tricube tales, I use move-like reactions in DnD and so forth.

It’s never been about the VALUE of these games, it’s about how lots of copies got sold in a way I don’t like.

Have fun and take care

TSM (Marco)