As a follow-up to my discussion of Narrative Mechanisms in TTRPGs, I want to consider two specific roleplaying games: Exalted (and it’s spin off, Exalted Essence), and Ironsworn.

Exalted takes place in a high fantasy world, and is played on an epic scale. The heroes are meant to be larger than life, and are inspired by things like real-world mythology, as well as Japanese anime and Chinese wuxia series.

In contrast Ironsworn is very much played on a different scale. It is inspired by dark fantasy European stories, and while the quests may be perilous, the stakes are often smaller.

However, both games have narrative mechanisms, which help the story along, but do not simulate the world. (This aspect of new TTRPGs is the difference between simulations vs story-gaming, which I outlined before). These are ‘stunts’ in Exalted, and ‘momentum’ in Ironsworn.

Stunts

Old style D&D, and also the original World of Darkness games that Exalted takes its original rule set from, are basically pure simulations games. No rule ‘breaks’ the immersion in the game, and everything is set up to be consistent with the world of that game. Even magic is still a consistent set of rules.

Which Exalted though, this starts to change. Exalted has stunts, whereby a character can perform a stunt to make the action more ‘cool’, and gains a benefit for doing so.

Imagine in a game of D&D, if a player said they want to swing on a chandelier across the room, avoiding enemy archers, do a double-forward flip through the air and land by kicking their opponent down, followed by a rapier stab to the chest. This would be dramatic and cinematic, but difficult. There would be multiple rolls required (acrobatics, enemy attack rolls, and your own attack roll), and it would be more difficult to pull off successfully than a simple attack.

In Exalted, such an action would be considered a stunt, and would gain you extra dice to roll, making a position outcome more likely. This is because it would ‘look’ great (in the theatre of the mind), and so tell a more exciting story. Exalted specifically says in the rules that such dramatic and cinematic stunts should have an increased chance of success. So they go beyond a simple medieval combat simulator, to give something that enhances the narrative flow.

Exalted Essence changes this up even further. When you do a stunt, you can use the extra dice immediately for your own roll. Or, you can bank these for other benefits: helping other players, restoring resources such as essence or willpower, dramatic editing, or instant training. Dramatic Editing is where you change the scene to your benefit. For example, a dramatic escape might end with you “Landing in the Saddle“, even though there was no horse established to be there beforehand. Effectively stunts are a mechanism for players to change reality to some extent, or at least change the reality as defined by the GM.

This has some small justification in the fiction of the universe. The Exalted are gifted some power of the gods, and so they are naturally favoured by the ‘source code’ of Creation. (This is especially true for the Sidereal Exalted). But it means that if you’re looking for a game with a rigid set of rules for things like combat etc, and even how the world works, Exalted might not be the choice of game for you.

But, if you are keen to play a more John Wick, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or DBZ-like game, Exalted shines.

Momentum

Ironsworn is very different. The Ironsworn rules are somewhat based on PbtA, so instead of taking actions, your players make moves. (The difference between actions and moves is more philosophical than anything else, so I’m going to gloss over it). There is no stunting built in, because it’s not built for creating that kind of over-the-top story.

But, it does have the momentum mechanism. To quote, momentum represents how your characters are faring in their quests. If the quest is going well, the momentum will be positive, but if things are starting to go wrong, it may go negative. Interestingly, the players can burn positive momentum, to remove a complication, turn a miss into a weak hit, or a strong hit into a decisive blow. This allows the players to move sail through situations that may otherwise have stalled them.

But, if the momentum is negative, it will make life more difficult for you, cancelling your action die if it rolls badly. When your momentum reaches the threshold of -6, the players face a setback, which might “reduce your health, spirit, or supply”, “or undermine your progress in a current quest, journey, or fight“. So negative momentum should be avoided, except so far as to make the story more interesting (tales of adversity are often more gripping).

Success vs failure

In D&D a success or a failure will have consequences for the characters. This result will have a knock-on effect for the story. But narrative mechanisms allow players and GMs to control the narrative more directly.

Exalted is a game about the consequences of success. And so the rules are there to help the players succeed, but in the most dramatic and narratively-interesting way possible. Stunts, therefore, heighten the drama, giving that cinematic feel to the game.

Ironsworn is a game about the consequences of failure. Momentum allows players to ‘kick the can’ of failure down the road, but it may still come back to hurt them later (as burning momentum early in the story may have bad repercussions). And when things start to go downhill, they can go downhill really fast. Of course, if the players manage to regroup, and pull success from the jaws of defeat at the last minute, the story can be equally satisfying.
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