In RPGs players usually narrate what their character does and the GM narrates the world, the obstacles they face and how the NPCs act. But what if some powerful characters could flip that narrative on its head?
Years back my group and I played a game of Broken Worlds called Gangs of New Gloam. The system is set in the world of Kill Six Billion Demons and the PCs get to play some really powerful and competent characters (at least by standards of trad games like D&D).
One of our players played The Hunter playbook, which made them a legendary assassin. One of their powers stuck out to me in particular:
Mantra of Ovis, the Empty OneName a character or location. If you spend a powerdie, at some point before you next rest, you can tellthe GM that you’re there, very close to that characteror location, silently observing from a hidden perch.You can’t tell anyone how you got there, not evenyour GM - for that would be to reveal the ShadowArts.
It is at the same time simple, and yet very thematic and effective. Of course an assassin would easily find a way to get to their target while remaining hidden. Of course you don't need to ellaborate on how they got there since that would take away from the cool factor. But best of all, it also maintains the mystique by not even letting you explain how you got there, which was a part that really made it memorable!
In comparison, some time later I played a game of Exalted vs World of Darkness called Heaven for Everyone. It's a modern demigod game of PCs wielding ancient power and using it to wreck the old White Wolf setting. I played a Sidereal character that maxed out Stealth. Good spies in the setting would have maybe 6 dice, top level starting characters for most of the World of Darkness game would push things to 10 dice, this character had a resting stealth of 15, pushing it to 20 if needed be.
During one of our missions the character needed to sneak in and out of a server room. Simple door, one person inside, but once you start describing the situation, it's hard to be a top level stealth character when an NPC only cracks open a door wide enough for them to stand in it, and then sits next to the door so you can't open it without knocking into them.
That kind of situation gave me an idea - what if at really high character competency, your script would flip and the player took control of the narration? What if you could turn Batman cool with it?
GM: You arrive at the mansion, it's guarded by a few patrols, the path brightly illuminated and everyone alert.
Player: I activate my Batman powers (roll stealth test and pass vs the guards). A lightning lights up the night sky and a glimpse of a silluette is seen jumping between the trees. The light flickers for a second and a dark figure appears behind one of the guards next to a balcony door. Someone yells to check the breakers and they can't hear the creek of the door as I get into the mansion.
GM: The inside corridors are patrolled by single armed guards. How do you get past them?
Player: (Rolls stealth vs the guards) One of the guards feel a cool breeze passing by them as if they felt a ghost. How do they react?
GM: They turn around and investigate!
Player: They turn around and see an eerily empty corridor. They deviate from their path and check out one of the rooms to look for intruders. What they don't notice is a shadowy figure taking advantage of that and sneaking right past the now open corridor from a turn they didn't expect.
GM: There is a single guard in the server room, looking at the monitors.
Player: (Rolls stealth vs the guard) It has been a long night for Bob. His kids kept him up all day and he can barely keep his eyes open. His big coffee mug has ran dry and he'll need the kick to keep up his shift. Whether he goes to fill it himself or gets someone else to do it, he's distracted enough for his system to get compromised without him even realising it.
That kind of narration melted away the player character's physicality and let them move as a cinematic force of nature. The rolls guaranteed the outcome, and letting the player narrate beyond their immediate character it allowed to set the scene for an epic stealth. If instead you tried narrating how the character moved through the space and how those actions were performed, it would move them to the mundane and step by step nature of things. Much less worthy of Ovis, the Empty One.
Of course, this kind of approach is not for every game. It's much more geared towards high-power / high-competency games where the PCs are a cut above people they confront. The ones where you can look at a situation and comfortably say the PC can dominate it without breaking a sweat so you can just go straight for the question of "How do you want to do it?" (like a few GMs do when their players roll a critical success).
