# What a great storytelling DM looks like



## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 5, 2010)

Over in the thread I forked this from, there's a discusssion of the Gospel of Papers & Paychecks:



> The role of a superior DM is NOT to tell a story to his or her players. The DM need only provide an interesting and challenging environment for the players to explore and then administer that environment totally impartially. Superior players will be able to create a character-driven, interactive story from these raw materials, and neither the players nor the GM can tell where the story is headed.




and Harlekin points to Piratecat's 4th edition thread as a good example of a storytelling approach.

I played in a 4E game Piratecat ran at Anonycon and it was fantastic, one of the best experiences I've had as a player in 4E. Some of the things he brings to it, like an actorly mastery of character voices and idiom and an explicit "It's OK to try doing different things, there's no wrong way to play" message, would be valuable in the arsenal of any DM, old-school or new.

Other things he was able to pull off I had previously thought were impossible, and made me reconsider where the line was between techniques that work in RPGs and ones that only work in fiction. For example, as we were racing flying carpets through a djinni city, in between narrating the thrilling action sequence he'd give us these brilliant little descriptions of what we could see people doing in the windows as we flew past!

On reflection, I think that his doing new-school, storyteller GMing extremely well helped me identify a difference between this and old-school reactive GMing.

I ran a 4E game for some NerdNYCers with whom I'd been trying to explain why the old-school approach wasn't simply DM fiat. Afterwards, one of them was like "Oh, I see what you mean about old-school now" and I was like "no, wait, I was wearing my 4E hat; that's as new-school as I know how to be!"

The thing this player identified was a moment when the PCs were preparing to enter a mine. They spent a good while discussing how to do it, considering the advantages of rappeling vs. riding a mine cart and working out the details of each. Everyone seemed really into this, so I sat back and enjoyed watching it happen. My new-school player said that as a DM he would have pushed the party right past this; it was obvious to him that the story was about what was in the mine, not how the PCs entered it. 

As an old-school DM I see the story as "that thing the players want to do"; as long as they're having fun I'm happy to roll with it (which, of course, means finding ways to horribly complicate whatever plan they come up with; that much all DMs can agree on). When I think about great old-school DMs I've been fortunate enough to play with - Tim Kask, chgowiz, James Raggi, as well as my homies Eric, James, and Adrian from NY Red Box - I can clearly picture each of them sitting back and, behind their poker face, being amused by the PCs making trouble for themselves.

Piratecat doesn't sit back, he leans forward. When I say stuff as a DM, it's usually either in response to a player's question or because I see a lag in the action and need to move people along. Piratecat's descriptions of scenery flying by moved things along even when they're already going full-tilt and all the players are totally engaged! 

It seems to me that a new-school storyteller DM is, well, the teller of a story, and as such you can look to them to be entertained. An old-school DM is just the stage manager; if you look to them for entertainment, it's likely to come at your own expense & in the form of wandering monsters rather than an exciting storyline that'll sweep you away.

I can't speak to the issue of narrative choice on a macro-level, having just played a convention game. I don't doubt that Piratecat handles this as well as every aspect of his DMing that I did get to see, even if I suspect the player narrative control emerges at a different level using different tools than my sandbox campaign. He certainly allowed players lots of choice within the framework of the rules and adventure (including an unusual-in-my-experience degree of freedom in not-as-written uses for skills and powers in a challenge or combat), and people supplied their own motivations. Still, I felt like doing this helped us get more into the story that Piratecat was moving forward, whereas even in my own convention games where I do design a beginning-middle-end I feel like I'm leaving it up to the players to discover what that story is and advance it.

I'm not at all saying that sitting back is better than leaning forward. The former trades a sense of freedom for the risk of a slack and fragmented experience, and in fact I probably never would have started exploring the virtues of a sitting back approach if I were able to tell a story as excitingly & apparently effortlessly as PK did! (Maybe doing a storyhour is good training in coming up with D&D-appropriate narrative on the fly?) What I did want to point out was a difference I've observed even under the similar conditions of a convention game for strangers that I think exemplifies the different ways each style can be awesome.


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## Chzbro (Feb 5, 2010)

I find this discussion amazingly interesting.

Because I'll be spending time behind the DM's screen for the first time in a long time soon, it's something that I guess I've been thinking about without really knowing I was thinking about it.

Obviously, every player (and DM) likes different things out their games, and I can only speak for myself. So it struck me while reading the OP's compelling post, that while I do enjoy a DM who "sits back" and lets me create my own trouble every once in a while, I typically much prefer having a pretty good idea of what the story is going in. So, in the parlance of the OP, if the story is in the cave and not how we get into the cave, I prefer to just get into the cave.

It's worth noting that I'm a long-time player (started around '80), so I don't think that such feelings are necessarily generational. I'm also a creative type (Master's in Creative Writing), so I don't feel that I'm the kind who needs to have a story presented to me because I just can't think of anything. That said, when I play I want to be a part of the story being told...one of the heroes, certainly, and with a degree of narrative control...not creating the story as I go.

There is little that I dislike more in a game of D&D (and I am fully aware that this will be considered heresy to many on these boards) than having a DM describe an innkeeper who greets me with a hearty hello, and then proceed to stare at me with an expectant look. It's not that I can't roleplay or am completely uncomfortable with the notion, it's that I hate fishing for information that, by implication, the innkeeper clearly has without having even a little clue as to what that information might be.

If anyone has seen the Wizards podcast featuring the Robot Chicken writers, that's an excellent example. The dwarf-face bas-relief starts talking. He's clearly got stuff he needs to say for the purposes of the adventure. Chris Perkins says something to one of the players and looks at him expectantly...to which the player responds, "Please, sir, I have a History of but 2."

With no offense intended toward Mr. Perkins, this made me laugh because I know just how that player felt. If you have something to tell me, just tell me; otherwise I feel like I'm just guessing for the right response.

And while I know that there is no right response, that doesn't change the nagging certainty in the dark recesses of my mind that there could be.

I'm happiest when my D&D games are like a collection of scenes from a book or a film. The exciting ones we play out and the boring ones are a montage. Rarely in the books and films I enjoy does the hero meet a supporting cast member and fumble through five minutes of awkward, clumsy conversation before finally figuring out what comes next. I know this kind of storytelling is fun for some, even many, people, but it never has been for me.

And so I'm thinking now that all of this planning I've been doing for my upcoming campaign has reflected this...even though I wasn't really aware I was doing it. I've been plotting out scenes--areas where the story progresses--and making sure each one has a relatively explicit clue or quest about what comes next. The players don't have to follow it, of course, but I suspect they will just because it's the most obvious course of action.

It's not sandbox, that's for certain, and while the idea of a sandbox campaign has always appealed to me, it sure seems like it fits a lot better with the "sit back" style of DMing than it does with "story-driven" DMing...

Great topic. Thanks for the insight and "thought provocation."


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## Piratecat (Feb 5, 2010)

Hmm. Thanks for the kind words, Tav, although I'm uneasy being the example. You had the advantage of seeing that adventure the third or fourth time I'd run it, after many of the bugs were worked out. I do find the topic of storytelling vs. old school play really interesting, though.

If I had to sum up my own DMing style in one sentence, it would be "don't let the players get bored." That doesn't mean constant action, but I want them always thinking about something - roleplaying, or worried about what the NPCs are doing, or figuring out a mystery or a puzzle, or the like. To this end, I try to run a really cinematic style of game; I hope that if they remember the cool bits they'll forget the part where the action or the mechanics bog down a bit. I try to improve mechanics that bore people, and I keep my fingers crossed that if I get the players immersed in the world through throwaway detail, their own imagination will compensate for any details I forget to give.

Thing is, this works equally well with old style dungeons too. I try to give the PCs a sense of urgency and purpose; I try to give them enough sensory detail that they're involved with the adventure. When they kick down the door, you want them to hear the wood splinter and smell the wall of odor coming off the troglodytes on the other side. Add hints that the monsters are involved with a larger scheme -- "Why does this troglodyte have a signet ring that could only belong to our princess?" And then only develop plots that the group bites at.

Stuff like "mine cart vs. rappelling" is key in this regard. The players' choice has a big effect on what they see and hear as they enter, as well as what encounters take place and what the bad guys see and hear. The nice thing is that you as DM can stack the odds. Want them to take the mine cart because it's the far more cinematic approach? Make it worth their while - hint that it would deliver them into a more advantageous part of the mine, that it would be fast enough that they couldn't be easily ambushed, or what have you. They may still pick rappelling, but you can stack the cards in favor of what will end up being the most fun for your players.


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## Piratecat (Feb 5, 2010)

I'm not sure I agree with the initial quote that a GM need merely create an interesting environment and then be impartial. That's because this is classic "top-down" sandbox design, figuring out everything and then plunking down your characters, and I suck at it. 

The downside of this is that my campaign has a lot of details that only get filled in right before the PCs need to know them. The upside is that I keep myself amused and there's never any delay because I haven't designed part of the campaign world; I just make stuff up on the fly and write it down later.

So, how do you create a storytelling approach that doesn't feel like you're dictating the players' actions or choices? For me the best way has been to drop buttloads of different hints, clues and hooks that don't have anything more than a nebulous plot behind them. I then end up developing the ones they seem to be most interested in, and later on I consider whether any of the plots they ignored are continuing to echo and ripple through the world. The PCs' choices make a difference in the campaign, both positively and negatively, and they end up accomplishing the types of adventures they like best.

Both 3e and 4e have tremendously flexible mechanics that you can bend to almost any purpose. Take advantage of that. Figure out what skills, feats and class features the PCs possess and _make sure you give them a reason to use every one._ Some of the best advice I've gotten is that a cool PC feature that they never get to use is worse than not having it in the first place -- so build in opportunities for your PCs to use their cool toys, and have the story react to their actions.

A classic example for this is the cleric's ability to channel positive energy/radiant damage. Yeah, it's good for smiting undead, but what else? So in a dungeon under a temple you put in a door that only opens when positive energy is channelled into it. Then you add a mystery-based complication; the door actually stores the energy from the last person to open it (or uses it for some mysterious purpose to power a dungeon feature? Hmm. No, wait, don't get distracted.) and the new opener can sense who and when it was. Tell the cleric opening the door that it was last opened by a very famous, long-dead saint of their religion... four days ago. Now the player has a new mystery to consider, even though it doesn't have any direct impact on them immediately. 

Replace "positive energy" with "a whispered secret" for an old temple of Vecna, and "saint" with "arch-lich", and you have a very different sort of plot hook and adventure with almost precisely the same set-up.


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## S'mon (Feb 5, 2010)

I'm definitely more of an old-school GM, nothing thrills me more than reacting to my players' unexpected actions.  And I suck at storytelling.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 5, 2010)

Chzbro, I agree that even back in the day, I'm certain lots of people had a storytelling approach, just like lots of folks used minis, invented crunchy skill systems, and otherwise didn't act like we expect of old-schoolers! I'm using it here to say "those things that were part of the original approach but are in opposition to the mainstream contemporary approach." If the 4E DMG was giving advice about how to remain inscrutable while the PCs talk themselves into your diabolical deathtrap, presumably we'd have an old-school movement that extolled the virtues of cutting to the chase and getting right to the deathtrap already, and they'd canonize guys from back then who took that approach!

Piratecat, it wasn't me who made you the poster boy for storytelling DMs: I'm just following the trend!

I think that not letting players get bored and nudging them towards fun choices without showing your hand are both tools common to sit-back and lean-forward DMs. I think cinematic is also too wide an adjective, but maybe it's getting at something to say that my favorite kind of action movies are heist films like A Man Escaped where there's a very high planning-to-action ratio.

I also think that a lot of our DMing style comes from what we dislike or are bad at! It stresses me out to feel like the plot is up to me so much that I feel like it's easier to generate a table with six ideas for what happens next and let the dice choose, even though that's six times more work!

Interesting that we all seem to throw out a lot of stuff that doesn't get chosen and figure things out only right before the PCs need to know it. Maybe those are also good DMing skills universally, or maybe the sit-back thing I'm seeing here doesn't correlate with other kinds of DM approach.

I don't think it's just a well-polished adventure or one that's designed to deliver concentrated goodness in a four-hour slot: both of those were also true of my mine-rappelling example.


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## Stacie GmrGrl (Feb 5, 2010)

S'mon said:


> I'm definitely more of an old-school GM, nothing thrills me more than reacting to my players' unexpected actions. And I suck at storytelling.




And I think I'm totally new school.    I stand up, I don't sit.  I hover over them sometimes and move around, lets me think and react better.  I like telling them the things they see as they move, and let the subtle plot unfold by their actions.  I roll combat dice in front of them, I never hide it.  

For me, absolute fairness is one of my things.  That's why I don't hide my rolls.  I don't do redo's, I don't allow out of game talk during combat.  I love combat.  Setting up scenes and what scenic options could happen and what kinds of possible stunts players can come up with using the scenery.  

Anything and everything to get the players to sweat in their seats at a propelling pace of cinematic action and suspense.  That's pretty much my goal.  I do okay reacting to them, and I usually go with the very first thing that pops into my head, which isn't the most logical at the time because later when I get home and I rethink things, half my decisions then don't make much sense to me  lol.  But if the players have fun and enjoy things, they don't care about the little things like that.

And having players enjoying themselves is one of the ultimate goals of the game.


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## Harlekin (Feb 5, 2010)

Tav_Behemoth said:


> Piratecat, it wasn't me who made you the poster boy for storytelling DMs: I'm just following the trend!




I'll take credit for that. And I think PC's post also show how to run a story based game right. The story provides a general long-time direction for the events in the campaign, but at the local level, there are many different directions the players can go in. And many choices that the players take will reverberate as the story unfolds.


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## Garmorn (Feb 6, 2010)

Tav_Behemoth said:


> Chzbro, I agree that even back in the day, I'm certain lots of people had a storytelling approach, just like lots of folks used minis, invented crunchy skill systems, and otherwise didn't act like we expect of old-schoolers! I'm using it here to say "those things that were part of the original approach but are in opposition to the mainstream contemporary approach." If the 4E DMG was giving advice about how to remain inscrutable while the PCs talk themselves into your diabolical deathtrap, presumably we'd have an old-school movement that extolled the virtues of cutting to the chase and getting right to the deathtrap already, and they'd canonize guys from back then who took that approach!




Quite true.  I have never figured out what people meant by old school because I have seen several styles since the 1980.  Several times they where being held up as a great example of old school in one thread and attacked as being just the opposite of old school in another.




Tav_Behemoth said:


> I also think that a lot of our DMing style comes from what we dislike or are bad at! It stresses me out to feel like the plot is up to me so much that I feel like it's easier to generate a table with six ideas for what happens next and let the dice choose, even though that's six times more work!




I would also add:  The reactions we get from our players has or should have a large part in how much story we tell.  It also should affect how we tell the story.  I am DMing for a group of nebies.  All but 1 of my players has not played in more then four or five sessions and those where years ago.  We have had 3 sessions and they are still learning the very basics of what is happeing.  To much story telling and not enough railroading leaves them floundering.  On the other hand my wife and I do one on one that is nothing but story telling.  She would be happy in group that never see combat if the story line was engaging and she could really affect the story's outcome.


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## howandwhy99 (Feb 6, 2010)

My preference in roleplaying games is not towards storytelling, but deductive reasoning.  That is what is fun for me and what I understand as central to roleplaying: the mental reasoning out of categorical patterns and their relations to each other in my imagination as being related to me an impartial referee, the pattern giver.  Seeking to understand these relationships and planning alone or with my fellow players to try and accomplish goals are highlights for me.  It isn't the fiction or the quality of an after-the-fact narrative arc, that is secondary.  Nor is it is a thematic conflict pushed upon me by an outside party, that is strictly emotional management (too often spuriously argued for as "fun").  It is the brilliance of our own ideas come upon in our attempts to understand the world and enact our own desires within it according to the underlying, hidden framework (i.e. pattern) not wholly known by any player, just the referee.


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## S'mon (Feb 6, 2010)

Harlekin said:


> I'll take credit for that. And I think PC's post also show how to run a story based game right. The story provides a general long-time direction for the events in the campaign, but at the local level, there are many different directions the players can go in. And many choices that the players take will reverberate as the story unfolds.




Piratecat gives me an inferiority complex - one of the players in my old campaign went to Gencon, she played in a game he GM'd, and came back raving about it.      I don't think most GMs can expect to compare to Piratecat, but I'm sure there are things we can usefully learn from him.


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## S'mon (Feb 6, 2010)

Stacie GmrGrl said:


> And I think I'm totally new school.    I stand up, I don't sit.  I hover over them sometimes and move around, lets me think and react better.  I like telling them the things they see as they move, and let the subtle plot unfold by their actions.  I roll combat dice in front of them, I never hide it.




I always roll my dice in the open - I didn't know that was new school.    I will stand up sometimes too - helps with my back pain.    I tell them what they see too, though I suspect I am not brilliant at communication, especially in a crowded noisy D&D Meetup room, and with the minis and battleboard I tend to rely on those to show the scene, rather than describing it verbally.  I run PBEMs and text-chatroom games too though, there my style obviously is far more descriptive and possibly more atmospheric.


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## TarionzCousin (Feb 6, 2010)

FYI, Matthew Finch's "A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming" is a great resource and fun to read. 

Bonus: it's free to download.


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## Ariosto (Feb 6, 2010)

The "Black Sox" of 1919 might have been great 'story-telling'.

What people wanted, though, was baseball.


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## Umbran (Feb 6, 2010)

I've had the pleasure of being in sessions P-cat has run, and I think I understand what you're getting at.

In the various factional head-buttings, much has been made of how "storytelling" is bad, focusing on how the GM is railroading a particular plot.  And while there are some GMs who do that, by and large, that's not what storytelling in RPGs is about - as you've seen.

A storytelling GM is one who gives the needs of story high priority.  And by needs of story, I mean things like evocative description, theme, and dramatic timing.  There are in the world still a few people around who tell stories professionally.  They do it well enough to get paid, and they have techniques to keep the audience engaged - tricks of body posture and vocal control, for example.  A GM can use some of those same techniques at the table, without predetermining the plot.

Many GM's go by the "if everyone seems entertained, I'll let them keep going" philosophy.  This GM will allow you to spend a half-hour of your game debating how to do down the mineshaft, so long as nobody's there twiddling their thumbs.  

The Storytelling GM knows that if you wrote this half-hour down as a story, it'd be pretty boring.  Even if everyone is engaged and interested in the debate at the time, afterward nobody's going to care - when they tell the war story of the session, it'll be summarized as, "We spent a half-hour debating how we'd go down the mine, and then we...."  The Storytelling GM sees that half-hour as flaccid dramatic timing.  Unless something else cool is going on between the party members such that the players will remember it, the Storytelling GM is going to try to urge the players on to some action.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 6, 2010)

howandwhy99 said:


> My preference in roleplaying games is not towards storytelling, but deductive reasoning.  That is what is fun for me and what I understand as central to roleplaying: the mental reasoning out of categorical patterns and their relations to each other in my imagination as being related to me an impartial referee, the pattern giver.




I think this is a very important perspective. Over at the OD&D boards I remember you using the analogy of a classroom, and I agree that playing D&D is like being a student: part of the fun is mastering the knowledge that the teacher has and you don't. Let's imagine it's a history classroom, and that the goal is "making the past come alive in the students' minds" (for better analogy with the D&D experience).

By that analogy, a sit-back teaching style might involve creating problems in historical cause-and-effect, such that in learning to solve these problems the students will develop the skills they need to understand the historical period and imagine it for themselves. A lean-forward teaching style might choose some key moments in history to describe in an exciting lecture.

"Immediate and vivid" is best delivered by the lecture, "deep and abiding" by problemsolving. Too much of the former risks the students not being able to imagine history for themselves once the lecture is over, too much of the latter risks an abstract and lifeless conceptualization. Good teachers certainly use some of both (the sit-back prof moves around the classroom monitoring and guiding the process of the groups' problemsolving, the lean-forward lecturer involves students in a Socratic dialogue) but I've certainly been in (and enjoyed and learned from) classes that felt more like one or another.

To argue with my earlier statements about old-schoolers not always being old-school:

- My experience with guys who were there in the '70s like Tim Kask is that they are in fact very strongly "old school" sit-back; the convention game of his I played in at Gary Con last year had like 100 rooms spread over 6 levels, giving an enormously powerful impression of "here is a world in miniature, go forth and explore it as you see fit" instead of "here's just enough flavorful bite-sized chunks to deliver a thrilling story in a four-hour time slot." Arguably, by the time Chzbro and I started playing in '80 this style was already being lost, either because players didn't understand it (I certainly didn't when I was 10, or even 30) or wanted something different.

- It's true that folks who were old-schoolers do change over time. Paul Jaquays' advice in Shick's _Heroic Worlds_ (1991), like "Create stories. Think of the adventure as if it were a piece of fiction... The plot is the arrangement of story elements, describing the tasks the players must perform to overcome the major obstacle and achieve the goal", is very different from the message I get from his _Caverns of Thracia_ (1979), which has lessons like "the sense of wonder and achievement that the players get from finding hidden sub-areas entirely on their own, with absolutely no guidance from the DM or adventure, is often sweeter than the triumph of beating the obvious boss that the main dungeon is funneling them towards." At the same time, when I first read Caverns I thought "that's crazy that there are these secret areas that the players have no way of finding!" but actually playing it showed me that OD&D gives players lots of tools, like intelligent swords that detect secret doors, that aid their job of exploration. 

- I think a major reason that the general evolution of D&D has been away from sit-back and discover it yourself (with a lot of rules for how you find secret doors and track the time and hazards spent in exploration) and towards lean forwards and tell a story (with rules for how to balance challenges so that you can string lots of 'em together in a slam-bang action sequence and minimize "downtime" spent resting or getting from here to there) is that the old-school rules were in fact designed for an old-school style. It seems to me that the push for a new ruleset isn't from people who say "OD&D is really good at exploration and discovery, but we'll make it even better in this new edition" - those folks are going to be happy playing it as is. Newer editions become more new-school specifically because people want a lean-forward storytelling style that older editions left room for, but weren't ideally designed to facilitate.

EDIT:
Umbran's post while I was typing mine is spot on. I'd add, though, that a virtue of letting the session play out the decision about how to go down the mine is that sometimes what the players come up with isn't what the GM would have whisked them towards. Sitting back gives you more opportunities to be surprised, both by the ultimate outcome and by the peculiar details of the players' plan which often generates things you can bring into the action that you wouldn't have invented by yourself. A good lean-forwards GM needs to leave space for this player-generated stuff, just like a good sit-back GM needs not to leave players room for endless dithering. 

Also, I meant to link to my Mule Abides post about nudges, which talks about techniques for doing what Piratecat was talking about here: "The nice thing is that you as DM can stack the odds. Want them to take the mine cart because it's the far more cinematic approach? Make it worth their while - hint that it would deliver them into a more advantageous part of the mine, that it would be fast enough that they couldn't be easily ambushed, or what have you. They may still pick rappelling, but you can stack the cards in favor of what will end up being the most fun for your players."


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## Piratecat (Feb 6, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> The "Black Sox" of 1919 might have been great 'story-telling'.
> 
> What people wanted, though, was baseball.



This is a fantastic point. It doesn't matter a damn if the DM has this fantastic story to tell, because _the game isn't about the DM_. The game is about the players and making the game fun for them. Can you tell your fantastic story in a way that's fun for everyone? Maybe - but it'll probably get a lot better if you let the players tromp all over it in spiky boots, then change it on the fly to compensate and take their actions into account.

A DM who allows you to traipse through their carefully crafted world, changing nothing consequential by your presence, is engaged in a bit of self-indulgent ego building. (Yes, I've played with someone like this and didn't care for it. Can you tell?    ) I'd rather adventure someplace where the bad guys react to you and you have the ability to influence the story.

But as a player, I don't enjoy storyless campaigns nearly as much. That's why mega-dungeons don't hold too much appeal for me and I was massively bored by the old Undermountain set.


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## Umbran (Feb 6, 2010)

Tav_Behemoth said:


> EDIT:
> Umbran's post while I was typing mine is spot on. I'd add, though, that a virtue of letting the session play out the decision about how to go down the mine is that sometimes what the players come up with isn't what the GM would have whisked them towards.




Well, the better the storytelling GM, the less likely they are to whisk you towards some specific method.  Rather than let you spend a half-hour making plans, the storytelling GM would probably create some sense of urgency, so that you have to make your decision more quickly, but the decision is still entirely yours to make.

Yes, there's something to be said for allowing players as much time as they want to work with all the fiddly bits.  However, I personally would save that for times when exactly what they come up with really matters.  

Planning the final battle in the War of Royal Succession?  Yes, the devil's probably in those details, and the plot of the campaign from that point on rests on this.  So I'm giving you lots of time to plan.

Getting down to the bottom of the mineshaft?  Even if you're _really_ clever about it, the end result is still just that you're at the bottom of the mineshaft.  I'm probably only concerned with how reckless you want to be - do you have most of your hit points when you reach bottom, and do you leave a way back up (or a way an enemy can follow you down)?


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## SkidAce (Feb 6, 2010)

I realize I am bucking the trend here, but I am really loving this conversation.  Everything you folks are saying about the benefits of "pro" active DMing and storytelling is spot on.

And I know DM and players experience is ancedoctal (sp?) but I feel I have to chip in one point.  

Proactive versus reactive, storytelling versus passive referee, you guys are hitting the nail on the head.  But to call it old school versus new school, I just don't see it.  Back in the eighties we had the same discussions about our DMs. 

Which DMs ran a mini's battle board, how cool the NPCs were, what we liked about the backstory, whether or not the DM let you wander around (which is different from floundering around by the way) or guided you when you needed it (which is different from a railroad by the way)  Which ones had good stories at the end of adventure (plot OR player driven) etc.

I reemphasize, everything good you are saying above is true, true, true, and the mark of a good DM.  A friend and I are considered "good" DMs and we learned a lot from one that sounds similar to Piratecat in '86 stationed in Korea.

Just can't get on onbard with the old school versus "new" storytelling labels.  But I can follow the conversation, so back to the discussion, sans any arguement from me.


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## catastrophic (Feb 6, 2010)

SkidAce said:


> Proactive versus reactive, storytelling versus passive referee, you guys are hitting the nail on the head. But to call it old school versus new school, I just don't see it. Back in the eighties we had the same discussions about our DMs.
> 
> Which DMs ran a mini's battle board, how cool the NPCs were, what we liked about the backstory, whether or not the DM let you wander around (which is different from floundering around by the way) or guided you when you needed it (which is different from a railroad by the way) Which ones had good stories at the end of adventure (plot OR player driven) etc.
> 
> ...



Yeah I agree that it's not good labeling at all. 

I do think that good techniques are, hopefully, becoming more common as time goes by, and I think there are notorious eras in the past where frankly bad GMing was overtly pushed in some popular games (like white wolf with it's uber-NPCs and spectator PCs in certain modules), but broadly, and also specific to this discussion, people have been going on about this stuff for years.


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## Umbran (Feb 6, 2010)

catastrophic said:


> Yeah I agree that it's not good labeling at all.




Also agreed here.  

I think the New/Old School terms and discussion has been too strongly influenced by (of all things) advertising.  Necromancer Games is a fine company, but I don't think I want our analysis shaped by the dichotomy they put forth for marketing purposes.

I prefer terms that are at least related to what is actually happening in the style.  "Old School" is not descriptive of the contents of a style, while "Proactive GMing" is.


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## Ariosto (Feb 6, 2010)

Umbran said:
			
		

> And while there are some GMs who do that, by and large, that's not what storytelling in RPGs is about.



That's what it's about when it's about that. I have never encountered any bitching about "evocative description" in the Dragonlance modules! It's the getting pushed around like hired hands in some director's production that irks folks who showed up expecting to play a game of AD&D.

Theme and dramatic timing, though? Yeah, those sort of take a back seat to the extent that it's not the umpire's job to _play the game for the players_. But then, old-style D&D is not Professional Wrasslin'.

If folks expect something more like the latter when they pay the price of admission, then you're golden.



			
				Tav_Behemoth said:
			
		

> Newer editions become more new-school specifically because people want a lean-forward storytelling style that older editions left room for, but weren't ideally designed to facilitate.



No kidding. I mean, they were about as "ideally designed to facilitate" that as Strat-O-Matic Football was, or Squad Leader, or Diplomacy. In the 1970s, we broke out a game to play a game. Want someone to tell you a story? Switch on Marlin Perkins or Rod Serling.

D&D, T&T, etc., dovetailed naturally with the temperament that gets into, e.g., making up "fan fiction". That's probably a usual component of the inducement to do the work of a Game Master. The GM role, though -- like a lot in D&D -- originated in the war-game field. The scope of the early campaigns was more like Tony Bath's Hyboria than like the constrained affairs taken for granted these days.

(I don't know when that started, but it sure seems tougher to manage a big campaign now I'm of a certain age. Maybe the change is a sign of the 'graying' of the hobby, or at least of the business?)

Anyway, I see the successive sprouting of different branches of development:

wargames+Braunstein --> RPGs --> story-telling games

... with a roughly parallel but diverging (and perhaps re-converging) evolution in the field of computer games. The line there that goes back to D&D is now a much bigger phenomenon! It is probably less a case today, especially for a newer generation of gamers, of computer games riding on D&D's coat-tails than of vice-versa.



> ... the convention game of his I played in at Gary Con last year had like 100 rooms spread over 6 levels ...



Just 16 or 17 rooms per level seems remarkably cramped to me. Then again, you're talking about a convention scenario.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 6, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Just 16 or 17 rooms per level seems remarkably cramped to me. Then again, you're talking about a convention scenario.




You may be right that there were more than 17 rooms per level - I only got a quick glimpse of the map when *diaglo* won the auction for Tim's tournament module and let me sneak a peek. What I know for sure is that we descended down six levels, passed up a lot of doors, and spent so much time* exploring empty halls that my 3E-trained approach to playing a high-level caster (throw my ten-minute-or-more duration buffs as soon as you enter the front door) was totally invalid, much to Tim's amusement.

*In-game time, that is; out-of-game this exploration proceeded quite briskly, but just covered much more ground inbetween encounters than my experience of new-school dungeons led me to expect.


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## Umbran (Feb 6, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> That's what it's about when it's about that.




Which is rather circular.  And  "expecting to play a game of D&D" includes implicit assumptions - D&D is amazingly flexible, so there is no one well-accepted set of expectations there, and I've seen no evidence that there ever were.



> Theme and dramatic timing, though? Yeah, those sort of take a back seat to the extent that it's not the umpire's job to _play the game for the players_.




Yes, but it is the umpire's job to impose penalties for delay of game, to use your own analogy.

Railroading is not intrinsic to using storytelling techniques and being a proactive GM, any more than high-sticking is intrinsic to hockey.  Does it happen, are fouls committed?  Sure.  But high-sticking is not the point of the exercise, nor even a particularly effctive technique.


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## Thunderfoot (Feb 6, 2010)

There is a very, very fine line between railroading and plot line.  It takes years of playing to understand the difference and the how to of opening up the plot to be fluid instead of static. 

I've mixing the proactive/reactive styles of DM'ing for about 25 years now.  I always balk at hearing people say that having an ultimate goal is railroading... not true, railroading dictates the every movement of the players, you will go here and then go here and then go here and then do this and ta-dah, you win.... (The Dragonlance mods are infamous for this).

It's more work, true, but far more fun to know that ultimately the players will need to do something or meet someone, but drop subtle hints and then let them run around doing whatever.  I've never been able to just run a game completely on the fly (it never has that "feel" I'm looking for) but I try to never say, you have to do this that or the other thing, I give the players choices and they always have the option of going "off the board" so to speak.  I have had occasions where groups didn't take the bait and went other places, for me, the one aspect of the sandbox method  where it doesn't exist until the players find it is just bogus (IMO), I like for the world to move on.  For example I had an outline where eventually the player would meet a certain BBEG after they secured an item in order to defeat him - they caught a boat to a different land and decided to adventure there instead.  Cool, I can deal with that, but when they decided to return to the land, the BBEG had found the item and secured ultimate power in that land and was ruling as a tyrant.  Now they had to defeat said BBEG, but without the aid of the item - action; consequence.  Proactive and reactive combined.

This method is what I find very successful, at least for me, combining the methods.  I think the trick is as a player allowing a DM to learn how this done and being patient enough to reap the future benefits.  I didn't get there over night to be sure, it took a long time to learn these lessons and, sure, there are some folks that are just naturals, but it can be learned/taught.  And the trick for the DM is learning where you are currently and what you to do in order to get where you want to be.

But ultimately, it comes down to that perfect combination - a DM that runs the style of campaign you want to play in the way that makes it interesting to you as a player and a group of players that interacts first with each other and then with the DM in order to perpetuate campaign greatness.  It's what separates the string of one shot modules into a great campaign arc without shoehorning or railroading people into a pre-determined set of actions.


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## SkidAce (Feb 6, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Want someone to tell you a story? Switch on Marlin Perkins or Rod Serling.




+1 reputation for Mutual of Ohmaha's Wild Kingdom reference...


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## Ariosto (Feb 6, 2010)

> Which is rather circular.



Yes --  -- but circling back to _the original context_, namely "The Gospel of Papers&Paychecks". If you mean to dress that up as a celebration of wooden description or aimless floundering, then you do it a disservice. The Hickman Railroad and successors are in the bullseye.



> Yes, but it is the umpire's job to impose penalties for delay of game



Certainly. That is no contradiction. It is rather an art to know when to apply pressure to get things moving and when simply to let players reap whatever their time-management sows.

To call that "story telling" may needlessly muddy the waters.


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## Ariosto (Feb 6, 2010)

Umbran said:
			
		

> And "expecting to play a game of D&D" includes implicit assumptions - D&D is amazingly flexible, so there is no one well-accepted set of expectations there, and I've seen no evidence that there ever were.



There appear to be some false implicit assumptions on your part, as to the place of sweeping generalizations.



			
				me said:
			
		

> It's the getting pushed around like hired hands in some director's production that irks folks who showed up expecting to play a game of AD&D.



Namely me, Tom, Mike, Clayton, et al ... and, as I stated ...


> I have never encountered any bitching about "evocative description" in the Dragonlance modules!



Maybe you have. I, however, was speaking whereof I know.

If people are not irked at all by the Dragonlance modules, then obviously they are not irked by the railroading. Or at least it seemed obvious to me.

Returning, however, to your contention: It appears to me to have been a well accepted expectation among AD&D players of that time -- not an eccentricity of my circle -- that their choices should shape the course of events. Indeed, I am most curious as to whence you would expect people to get the contrary expectation. To get "played by" the game would be such a radical departure from every precedent that comes to my mind, that it seems just the sort of thing to have been addressed rather prominently in, for instance, the _Players Handbook_.


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## awesomeocalypse (Feb 6, 2010)

I've never been able to enjoy storyless games--I don't like the idea of simply being one of a bunch of dudes, just doing going around doing a bunch of stuff (either in a dungeon, or a more expansive sandbox). I've always wanted to be a protagonist, one of the main characters, whose actions are central to a real story. I like narrative tools--when the DM busts out a flashback, or cleverly foreshadows an event, I've always really enjoyed that (even though many players would see that as the height of railroading).

This is probably because I started playing with 2nd edition, which as an edition was pretty infatuated with storytelling. Which was odd, because in hindsight I don't know that as an edition it was really that well designed for storytelling in that sense--it essentially maintained a lot of the basic design of prior editions, while slapping a whole lot of flavorful but often poorly implemented rulesets on top of it in an effort to accomodate a playstyle that previous editions were never built for.

Unsurprisingly, I love 4th edition. Its perfectly constructed for the type of story-driven, highly cinematic games I most enjoy.


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## Ariosto (Feb 6, 2010)

awesomeocalypse said:
			
		

> I've never been able to enjoy storyless games ...



One might find old D&D (even 2E AD&D) pretty darned frustrating from that perspective.

I don't think that was by accident, at least prior to 2E (which looks a bit like a train wreck to me, taken altogether and by itself, for reasons on which you touched).



			
				awesomocalypse said:
			
		

> I've always wanted to be a protagonist, one of the main characters, whose actions are central to a real story.




The basic idea in old D&D was that first one went out and dared deeds worthy of the telling. Sort of like a certain Corsican whose name otherwise would probably be obscure -- or a certain exile from Atlantis, or a more famous Cimmerian.

Or, for that matter, like attaining a victory in almost any game from Asalto to Zaxxon.

This radical difference in perspective between two "schools", as to what's a cart and what's a horse, seems to contribute to much misunderstanding.


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## Janx (Feb 6, 2010)

Umbran said:


> I've had the pleasure of being in sessions P-cat has run, and I think I understand what you're getting at.
> 
> In the various factional head-buttings, much has been made of how "storytelling" is bad, focusing on how the GM is railroading a particular plot.  And while there are some GMs who do that, by and large, that's not what storytelling in RPGs is about - as you've seen.
> 
> ...




umbran nails it right there.  It's not about old-school/new school.  Its making your game interesting, rather than slow and boring.  His points are valid whether you're on a sandbox, or adventure path.

For a "storytelling" dm, the intent should be "how do I keep them moving towards THEIR goal in a dramatic way that THEY will enjoy".  As opposed to "how do I keep them moving towards MY goal that follows MY story".

If it is considered a valid technique for a lean-back DM to "figure out how to mess with and complicate the players plan", then it is equally valid for the lean-forward DM to "figure out how to keep them moving, so they don't dither or wallow in awkward moments"

Having that sense of urgency helps.  It's a key part of how I run faster combats.  Just within the combat framework, you can do things to make the players feel tense and rushed.  Its a style of running the combat, not tied to specific game rules.

Having that sense of urgency outside of combat helps keep the party moving toward their goal.  Either a time-limit by way of "if we don't solve this by noon, bad stuf happens", or by virtued of "if we sit here planning how to get into the mine too long, guards will find us"

Making role-playing scenes move smoothly, so it doesn't feel awkward is actually the harder part, in my mind.  I don't want such scenes to play out as DM monologue, but in the same vein, the players don't want to flounder in trying to achieve their social goal.

As I see it though, the key for the DM is to try to make each scene seem cool and to flow with the last scene, minimizing the awkward moments.  That idea should be applicable to any game, regardles of how it was planned out.


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## SteveC (Feb 6, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> This is a fantastic point. It doesn't matter a damn if the DM has this fantastic story to tell, because _the game isn't about the DM_. The game is about the players and making the game fun for them. Can you tell your fantastic story in a way that's fun for everyone? Maybe - but it'll probably get a lot better if you let the players tromp all over it in spiky boots, then change it on the fly to compensate and take their actions into account.
> 
> A DM who allows you to traipse through their carefully crafted world, changing nothing consequential by your presence, is engaged in a bit of self-indulgent ego building. (Yes, I've played with someone like this and didn't care for it. Can you tell?    ) I'd rather adventure someplace where the bad guys react to you and you have the ability to influence the story.
> 
> But as a player, I don't enjoy storyless campaigns nearly as much. That's why mega-dungeons don't hold too much appeal for me and I was massively bored by the old Undermountain set.



If I can add onto that, it would be to say that the best storytelling GM isn't afraid to *let go* of a particular story element in reaction to what the players do. Sometimes characters find themselves at a critical point in the story that the GM has crafted and they make a decision that will utterly change the outcome. A rail-roading GM will make the story fit his original path, sometimes using very heavy handed tools. The best GMs I've played with have seen those decisions as a chance to spin the story in unexpected, and sometimes even better directions. This gives the players the feeling of really being a part of the story, rather than just along for the ride. They're the protagonists, after all, and the reason you're running the game.

The best thing is, those "roads not taken" due to the players actions are still there, and they can always be recycled later on down the road.


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## howandwhy99 (Feb 7, 2010)

Tav_Behemoth said:


> I think this is a very important perspective.



Thanks for the props. I do see older games as different game forms of RPGs rather than storytelling games. IMV, the worst way to view a roleplaying game is as a novel or other storymaking endeavor.  The point is not to create a narrative, but to present a reliable pattern to discover and from which the players can reason. 

A "cooperative problem solving group", as the players are in my game, can devise plans, set goals, communicate information learned or theorized about the world, review notes, and basically interact with each other without interference from a referee.  The referee is not force their plot on the players or improvisationally push them into whatever strategies of play they prefer.  Improvisation is never possible in an impartial role.  But when you give up your DM viking hat the game improves IME rather than degrades.  In fact, the game can be played both at and away from the table.  Certainly some things need to be shared with the referee (like item swapping) and all discussion should be cc'd in case an action sets off a rule (ever see the "I wish we had a..." wish spell rules in action?), but the referee is not the driver of play.  If the players argue for four hours at the table, then that is what happens.  As a cooperative game rather than a collaborative game, arguing is a poorer strategy, but without that option learning how to cooperate becomes a meaningless choice.  I do not see the role of an impartial referee as being in position to "force" anything.  That their actions do cause an emotive response is enjoyable, but it is not the type of fun the game is aimed at delivering.



SkidAce said:


> I



I agree the terms are poor to really describe with accuracy what's going on.  With the current redefinition of story to the point of meaninglessness (i.e. all human cognition and behavior are storytelling), I'm curious to what you call non-story games?  Do you mean RPGs where there is no course of action expected of the PCs?  Perhaps a game where no GM improvises or pushes other players to follow a path?


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## SkidAce (Feb 7, 2010)

A true non-story game is nearly impossible to create because after the adventure/session is over, you can see what story came along.

But to use my terms, a non-story game would be where it was all battle like a chess set and there was no continuity between sessions.

Most games I have been around are in the middle of the spectrum.  I think I may have said this before, but it's like two sides of the same coin, you can't have one without the other.


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## Chzbro (Feb 7, 2010)

Does anyone feel that the 4E "adventuring day" has changed the way you tell stories as a DM?

It seems to me that older editions left a lot more opportunities for the players to go "off script" between combats since there wasn't necessarily a need to string several combats into a single adventuring day. A party might dip their toes into a dungeon, head back to town for a night's rest, get distracted by some city intrigue, follow that to a different town, then amble back to the original dungeon a couple game months later.

Now while that same scenario can play itself out just as easily in 4E, I find myself designing a series of encounters/skill challenges for my players now which also incorporate a strong incentive to go on to the next "fight" instead of taking an extended rest. That's not to say they can't rest, just that there's a relatively strong story reason not to.

Now this doesn't strike me as "railroading," but I wouldn't be surprised if some others disagreed. After all, in order to make it work I have to have a pretty good idea of what they'll do next (although I do prep a couple "random" encounters just in case). In essence, I tend to organize adventuring sessions and play it by ear on where the next session will go rather than playing it fast and loose within the session.

Just to clarify, that doesn't mean the session is rigid and inflexible, just that I tend to figure, "Okay, they're going after objective X; they'll need to get through these 4 encounters to get it and then I'll see what they want to do next."

Again, that's not to say this wasn't possible or even often done in earlier editions, just that earlier editions made it easier to map out a dungeon with encounters and let the characters get there in their own time. If you do that in 4E you have a party at full power every fight, which is a lot less desirable (in my opinion).

So I wonder if part of the "sit forward" approach is simply one of semi-necessity based on the system. I'm confident it's changed the way I approach encounter design, but I'm curious what others think.


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## Piratecat (Feb 7, 2010)

Chzbro, I actually find this an advantage. In previous games I'd sometimes find it difficult having the bad guys continually react to small, once or twice a day raids. I like the extended adventuring day because it lets the group nail the bad guy before he has the opportunity to escape.


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## Chzbro (Feb 7, 2010)

I also find it advantageous, PC.

It makes it a lot easier to build suspense/tension when I can be relatively sure the party isn't going to suddenly decide to make a hole into another dimension and take a day off.

And, for me personally, it's just easier to run the kind of session I like to run.

But what happens to the "sit back" DM who chooses to play 4E? Does the system and that style conflict or are there no problems?

EDIT: None of the DMs in my group would be what you might call a "sit back" DM, although I've played with several. However, when we played earlier editions, our styles definitely seemed to lean more heavily that way (and I'm not saying that's bad). So even though no one's discussed it in the way it's being discussed here, 3 DMs in my group seem to have shifted more toward "sit forward" since playing 4E. Can anything be extrapolated from that?


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## Sadrik (Feb 7, 2010)

A bone dry scenario is brought to life by the GM who adds a little charisma to the process. This is what all DMs should be doing. This has nothing to do with whether the game is linear or sandbox. Don't confuse descriptive tags, story flair, unique role-played personalities with being only in a linear rail roaded game. 

I think the idea here is that old-school play is reactive and this touted new school play is proactive. Proactive play is one where you are making decisions for your players and then force them to react to you. In many circles they would call that for what it is a bullet train to the land of not fun. Even if the DM has enough charisma to pull it off after the session you would be like, what the hell did I just participate in? I was an automaton on the train. If the game master was entertaining you may have had a nice trip on the train, just like a good storyteller can be entertaining. Take that same charismatic DM who is creative and can think on his feat and has a mastery of the rules and able to apply them fairly and consistently. Plug them into a sandbox game (reactive old-school game using the term in this thread) you still get the descriptive flair, neat RPed personalities and such. 

Players who are often jaded, who often see the train pulling up before it even arrives and who often resist getting on the train need more free form experience and that requires the GM to step in and react to the player.

My point is that a good charismatic DM can make a linear game or railroad game fun. The question is how much linear fun can you take before you get tired of it. Whether you lean forward, sit back, sit down, or stand up it doesn't matter a good game is created by giving the players options, plenty of description to suspend their disbelief, a cool setting, great NPCs, role-playing those NPCs well, never shooting down your players outright and making sure you have fun because if you are having fun your players will too. So description with a lot of other things are important, it being a proactive, preemptive, linear or new-school game does not.

Another point I would like to throw out there is that linear games excel in one area. Convention games and one-shot games. In fact they are quite good in this regard. You simply cannot run a sandbox adequately in a one-shot game. A one-shot or convention game has to be laser focused on getting the players to the plot, location or event so they can begin there investigation, eradication or discovery.


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## Garmorn (Feb 7, 2010)

Chzbro said:


> I also find it advantageous, PC.
> 
> It makes it a lot easier to build suspense/tension when I can be relatively sure the party isn't going to suddenly decide to make a hole into another dimension and take a day off.
> 
> ...




That their gaming style has changed. 

I run a 4e campaign and am what you call a lean back DM.  In the original example as a player I would have enjoyed a good 30 minutes of planning.  As a DM I would be trilled that they are immersed enough in the game to want to plan.

I have always been this way and have found that the system does not change the DM/GM style only the way it is implimented.


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## Piratecat (Feb 7, 2010)

One technique I try to use to keep jaded players on their toes: subvert expectations. Signal a traditional plot or railroad, and then yank the plot sideways 90 degrees to make the players think on their feet. Customize old monsters or change their name and appearance to make metagaming difficult. Think about what the players are least likely to expect, and then veer the action in that direction.

You don't want plot twists to make the players suspend their disbelief, but creating a game that isn't predictable goes a long way towards keeping the players interested.


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## Mark (Feb 7, 2010)

Tav_Behemoth said:


> What a great storytelling DM looks like




EN World D&D / RPG News - Creative Mountain Gamers


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## Piratecat (Feb 7, 2010)

You're right, Mark - that IS Rob sitting behind you!


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## Mark (Feb 7, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> You're right, Mark - that IS Rob sitting behind you!




  That's David (Fenril Knight) with the thumb up and Jim (JamesJSkach) reading either a rule book or possibly a dirty magazine (Sindarin-sutra).


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## Aeolius (Feb 7, 2010)

and here I thought this was going to be a picture gallery


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## Haltherrion (Feb 7, 2010)

Tav_Behemoth said:


> Over in the thread I forked this from, there's a discusssion of the Gospel of Papers & Paychecks:
> 
> The role of a superior DM is NOT to tell a story to his or her players. The DM need only provide an interesting and challenging environment for the players to explore and then administer that environment totally impartially. Superior players will be able to create a character-driven, interactive story from these raw materials, and neither the players nor the GM can tell where the story is headed.




I cringe when I read advice like that. The "build a setting then let the players roll" approach can work but it takes the right players and referee for this to work well and honestly, it's far from the only way to run a successful game.

In my own decades of gaming, after an early munchkin phase I went for the "define a huge world" and let the players go where they wanted. I love to build settings and that let me unleash that aspect. And it worked pretty well when my gaming groups could meet every week and there were at least 2 or so players in the group who would really get into the setting, understand the world and help drive things.

But once real-life hit and gaming sessions fell to every 2-3 weeks and people had other things going on in their lives, this way of playing became very unsatisfactory. It is hard to know enough about a world to meaningfull drive things as players without a lot of time in it and a certain amount of out-of-game investment. While I consider my players to be good, engaged players, getting them to be proactive about what and where they are going is difficult to say the least.

So, after a few less than satisfactory campaigns some time ago I moved to games with less of an open, well defined setting and games with more referee driven plot and more detail in support of that plot. It seems to work well for what my players are willing to put into the game and it is not to say players do not have choices. It does mean as a referee I intervene more in the flow of events.

But this is rarely a black-and-white decision for the referee and players. There's a spectrum from "all setting, no referee direction" to "executing a script" and you can move along that spectrum as needed. I certainly don't see anything superior to one style of play over another in most cases. Even a tightly scripted campaign (within reason) can be fun in the right hands.


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## Ariosto (Feb 8, 2010)

Sadrik said:
			
		

> Another point I would like to throw out there is that linear games excel in one area. Convention games and one-shot games.



I agree, but note that _the_ big question in a typical tournament scenario is how far along the line folks get.

The presence of a _predetermined_ story is to what P&P objects, to trading gameplay for an essentially scripted play. It's not that well-crafted stories are not fine things, maybe even better things to a certain aesthetic than more modern literary conceits -- _in the context of literature_.

The fundamental point is that one happens to consider D&D in fact not literature but rather a game. From that perspective, the matter may not seem terribly hard to fathom; difficulty with it simply does not arise at all in other games!

The problem is that, as with dumping sugar into a fuel tank, the foreign ingredient interferes with the originally intended operation of the design. It's not an "additional feature"; it's trading one thing for another.

Which is fine, inasmuch as someone else might prefer to trade an evening's D&D for Pictionary, or a DVD of Brideshead Revisited, or a bottle of whiskey. *If the participants agree* on the object of the gathering, then all is well enough.

It's a bit of a problem for communication and social arrangements when a faction of 'reformers' sets out to redefine this as that, and that as nobody-knows-what, as if such semantic sleight of hand is somehow going to make tea and whiskey _taste_ the same and produce the same effects.

That is not a very considerate approach to the practical problem.


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## Grymar (Feb 8, 2010)

Many in this thread seem to be pointing to an either/or sort of situation.  It's either old-school/sandbox OR it is new-school/railroad. The campaigns I am most familiar with, my own, are more of a blend.

Between sessions, it is very nearly a sandbox. We use email to discuss plans, options, and plots. Sometimes they are given a mission/job, some times they seek something out. I like to put out a frequent city newspaper that is full of ideas or rumors that they can investigate. The point is, it can be nearly a sandbox.

Once they choose what they are going to focus on for a session, I go to work prepping it. And yes, that prep can be a bit of a railroad, but I do my best to keep it open. If they have to raid a warehouse, then I don't give them the way in...I build the warehouse as best I can and let them figure out how they want to get in. 

So, some railroad, some sandbox. Hopefully the result it is fun for everyone.


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## Quickleaf (Feb 8, 2010)

Great thread! It's nice to see an intelligent and revealing discussion about proactive/reactive DMing and the (dis)advantages of linear vs. freeform story.



Thunderfoot said:


> I've mixing the proactive/reactive styles of DM'ing for about 25 years now.  I always balk at hearing people say that having an ultimate goal is railroading... not true, railroading dictates the every movement of the players, you will go here and then go here and then go here and then do this and ta-dah, you win....



I think that player experience level influences which direction the balance of a game veers to - proactive for newer players and reactive for experienced players. Also, another poster made the astute observation that frequence of gaming sessions in a campaign influences whether you lean toward proactive or reactive DMing. 

In our group, with a mix of newer & old gamers, I have a strong overall situation set up (proactive), but leave the "how" to the players (reactive). Periodically I'll throw in new events/twists to jump start the story in a new direction (proactive), but the players are never forced to follow up on an event that doesn't appeal to them.



			
				Thunderfoot said:
			
		

> But ultimately, it comes down to that perfect combination - a DM that runs the style of campaign you want to play in the way that makes it interesting to you as a player and a group of players that interacts first with each other and then with the DM in order to perpetuate campaign greatness.  It's what separates the string of one shot modules into a great campaign arc without shoehorning or railroading people into a pre-determined set of actions.



From the DM's seat, I find it's more rewarding when that "perfect" combination is reached. I get my storytelling fix, and I also get to be entertained by the players.



Piratecat said:


> One technique I try to use to keep jaded players on their toes: subvert expectations. Signal a traditional plot or railroad, and then yank the plot sideways 90 degrees to make the players think on their feet. Customize old monsters or change their name and appearance to make metagaming difficult. Think about what the players are least likely to expect, and then veer the action in that direction.
> 
> You don't want plot twists to make the players suspend their disbelief, but creating a game that isn't predictable goes a long way towards keeping the players interested.



That's a great point. An extension of this idea is establishing meaningful failure as an option in most encounters. Failure should be fun and lead to new circumstances which the PCs need to react to. As a DM, I am constantly trying to improve my interpretation of failure. When my 3rd level group were unable to stop a ritual, I realized I had a one line note about what would happen: "summons ancient evil dragon spirit." That became a dracolich which is looming in the background, and presents an interesting mystery: who is controlling the dracolich's phylactery?

So the players feel the consequence of their characters' failure without it being a game killer (though it was terrifying).



Grymar said:


> Many in this thread seem to be pointing to an either/or sort of situation.  It's either old-school/sandbox OR it is new-school/railroad. The campaigns I am most familiar with, my own, are more of a blend.
> 
> Between sessions, it is very nearly a sandbox. We use email to discuss plans, options, and plots. Sometimes they are given a mission/job, some times they seek something out. I like to put out a frequent city newspaper that is full of ideas or rumors that they can investigate. The point is, it can be nearly a sandbox.



That's great you've managed to generate discussion in between games and the players give you a heads up as to their plans. I wish I were so lucky. In our group I have to guess the players' next steps using what I know about their tendencies and gaming style.

It's not too hard once you know all your players well, but sometimes they totally come with a left hook you're not ready for. Actually, one of our most memorable game sessions came when they caught me off guard by going to rescue a PC's uncle from the king's dungeon. 

So, maybe there is something to being forced to perform on our feet that brings out our hidden DM talents?


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## LostSoul (Feb 8, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> It's a bit of a problem for communication and social arrangements when a faction of 'reformers' sets out to redefine this as that, and that as nobody-knows-what, as if such semantic sleight of hand is somehow going to make tea and whiskey _taste_ the same and produce the same effects.
> 
> That is not a very considerate approach to the practical problem.




Are you actually talking about specific people saying specific things?  If so, who are those people, what are those things?

If not, what is your point?


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## Ariosto (Feb 8, 2010)

My point is that P&P was not just stringing together random words but rather trying to communicate meaning.

The response of basically dismissing that meaning by redefining "tell a story" in the context is one not of engaging in the dialog but of avoiding it. "When we want your opinion, we'll tell you what it is!"

I am quite familiar with the dodge. It is par for the course for "preaching to the choir", especially when the sermon-writer has a shortage of substantial ideas. The substitution of pun-making for profundity is an old, old tradition.

There is a weasel-twist from "D&D means nothing in particular, really" (which is thoroughly destructive) to "D&D means this new and different thing" (which would be splendid, if only everyone would believe you instead of their own eyes). It's a twist from feigned liberality to actual laying down of Right Thinking.

And it's accomplished not by dealing with real issues but by putting down a caricature of the dissenting view and its adherents.

I know from having read his work that P&P is a fine designer of scenarios, and he is by reputation a fine DM. The notion that he -- and, by extension, one who agrees with his statement -- practices or advocates the poor techniques being held up (in place of what P&P _actually_ mentioned) as "not telling a story" is simply invidious. It is the very model of a straw man.


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## Mallus (Feb 8, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> The presence of a _predetermined_ story is to what P&P objects to...



I object to a predetermined story too and I'm a "storyteller DM". Or, more precisely, I'm a DM who sees the connection between D&D and the fiction that informs it as obvious and inextricable. 



> It's not that well-crafted stories are not fine things, maybe even better things to a certain aesthetic than more modern literary conceits -- _in the context of literature_.



Well-crafted _story elements_ are fine things in a D&D campaign! You just need to forget about predetermined courses of action, and accept that the you-as-DM are not in control of your protagonists. 

Which leads me to my working definition of a good storyteller DM: someone who borrows and adapts the appropriate things from literature for use in their campaigns.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 8, 2010)

Mallus said:


> the connection between D&D and the fiction that informs it as obvious and inextricable




This would be more compelling if there was a unitary "the" fiction that informs D&D. I think it's fair to say that you need different DM techniques to incorporate the story elements of Tolkien and his heirs' quest-driven, epic plots unfolding across trilogies of fat novels than you do original-D&D inspirations originally written as series of short stories, like Vance (Cugel is teleported far away and has unrelated misadventures on his way home), Howard (Conan has unrelated adventures on his rise from barbarian to king), and Leiber (Fafhrd & the Mouser have unrelated adventures that end with them getting their hands on fabulous wealth and start again after they've thrown it away on drinking and wenching).

The thing that impressed me about Piratecat's DM style is that it did incorporate some techniques of storytelling that I previously thought were better suited to fiction than gaming, like giving us bits of description of events going on around us.

When he tossed these in during scenes where our characters were standing around talking about what to do next, it had the subtle effect of re-focusing us on the storyteller at a point when I and other GMs who self-identify as "old-school" might have leaned back and waited for player signs of boredom before saying anything. I admired the skill with which Piratecat did this and enjoyed the result, but it did seem emblematic of a different approach.

It's interesting to see what other things that does and doesn't correlate with!


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## Ariosto (Feb 8, 2010)

Mallus, that is nifty.

So, why drag "The Gospel of P&P" through the mud just to say that?

The general course of rhetoric here (not yours) looks to me like this:

(A) Why, at first glance that P&P and his sort seem to object to 'railroading'. They say it's not necessary in order to have an interesting 'story' arise out of a game.

(B) But that's a silly objection, because nobody would ever actually _advocate_ railroading.

(C) Therefore, the _real_ objection must be to colorful description, themes, and an exciting pace of play.

(D) As we all know, in order to provide those qualities, it is necessary to employ the technique of 'railroading' ...

Now, if someone simply says, "I agree with P&P; railroading is not necessary," or, "I disagree; without railroading, the result is not what I call a story" -- either way, regardless of whether one happens to consider the emergence of "a story" essential to one's personally preferred 'D&D' experience or not -- then I am fine with that.

The totally high-handed, high-horse baloney is not something I appreciate.

The fact is that different people have different tastes. The fact is that what some of those people like tastes really, really foul to some other people. The fact is that all of those groups have been sold stuff under the name of 'D&D'.

That has worked out fine for Hasbro making a quick buck, and even for each of those groups to get a game it likes (although for a continuing supply of rule-books and scenarios most of them must turn to other sources under other names).

So long as we're all effectively on separate islands of gaming goodness, we can arbitrarily mean whatever the heck we want to mean by 'playing a D&D game' or 'telling a story' -- as long as it means the same thing to our neighbors.

If anyone is going to step outside of the old familiar fields and try to get into a game somewhere else, then we need to have words that are actually useful for getting "on the same page".

The needs of genuine communication in trying to arrange a friendly social engagement are a bit different from the needs of rhetoric meant to elevate Us by putting down Them.


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## Ariosto (Feb 8, 2010)

I will note that the use of the term "superior" in the Gospel is likely to be off-putting to those whose values are diametrically opposed. So, however, is the whole premise anyway; that is in the nature of such value-judgments.


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## LostSoul (Feb 8, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> My point is that P&P was not just stringing together random words but rather trying to communicate meaning.




Ah, thanks, I understand what you were saying now.  I agree.  I need to pay more attention to what I'm reading.


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## rogueattorney (Feb 8, 2010)

Mallus said:


> Which leads me to my working definition of a good storyteller DM: someone who borrows and adapts the appropriate things from literature for use in their campaigns.




Which are what exactly?

That's the problem I have with these kinds of threads.  The story-telling proponents say that they aren't advocating railroading.  Fine.  But I don't understand what they ARE advocating.  I ask for in-game examples and I tend to get the following...

A.  You can't railroad the willing.  They aren't advocating railroading so much as advocating playing with players who don't care.

B.  Illusionism.  Rail-road really carefully and hopefully your players won't notice.

C.  Funny voices and florid description.  As in the initial post of this thread, which have nothing to do with the sand-box/story (or re-active/pro-active, if you prefer) debate.


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## Piratecat (Feb 8, 2010)

rogueattorney said:


> Which are what exactly?
> 
> That's the problem I have with these kinds of threads.  The story-telling proponents say that they aren't advocating railroading.  Fine.  But I don't understand what they ARE advocating.  I ask for in-game examples and I tend to get the following...
> 
> ...



I'll be honest, this post confuses me a bit - so please tell me if I'm missing your point. This is one of those things that for me is so much easier to show than tell.

Here's an in-game example of the game in which I got interested in story.

I was running one of my favorite old Dungeon modules for our 2e campaign; this would be roughly back in '93 or '94. The module is one of those "PCs are stuck at an inn during a blizzard, and at least one person is a murderer." In fact, two people are - and they're doppelgangers. The inn-keeper and his older son has been replaced, leaving his wife and youngest son freaked out by the differences in their personalities and scared by their anger. Everything comes to a head while people are snowed in.

When we played this, two of the PCs got killed and one of the doppelgangers got away, disguised as one of the dead PCs. The heroes were _pissed_. I thought "Hey! Good continuing foe!" Having learned about him via mind reading, the doppelganger headed to replace the rich noble father of one of the PCs. I didn't particularly care if the PCs stumbled on this earlier or later; I knew he was there, and I knew what he was accomplishing while the PCs were off doing other things. He wasn't staying static, and I was dropping in-game hints to the group that they didn't really think about for some time, but this doppelganger's presence in the campaign was creating additional story that the heroes would soon reenter.

And for me, that's a hallmark of storytelling in games: consequences. Actions should have consequences. Good or bad, small or huge, what the PCs do should make ripples in the world, and they should eventually see signs of this.


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## Janx (Feb 8, 2010)

rogueattorney said:


> Which are what exactly?
> 
> That's the problem I have with these kinds of threads.  The story-telling proponents say that they aren't advocating railroading.  Fine.  But I don't understand what they ARE advocating.  I ask for in-game examples and I tend to get the following...
> 
> ...




Alright, this is actual a pretty straightforward request. You want examples.

Bear in mind, I think we have different definitions of railroad.  To me it is a very specific per encounter very bad DM behavior where the DM actively negates playr choices.

But let's see if I can come up with a bit more (which actually I had referred to a few techniques already).

Technique:
Establish a sense of urgency in combat:
real combat is quick and choppy.  Rushed. Each action is NOT optimized and planned for 10 minutes.  I have a blog article on making combat faster.  Read that, use it, those are the methods.

Establish a sense of urgency outside of combat:
If the PCs are in a situation where they should feel rushed, because they don't have all night, you should bring in game elements to remind them of that.
wandering monsters are a good tool (or any patrol), when the party is in hostile territory and dithering on taking action, when in reality, they would get noticed.  If you let the PCs sit in a populated dungeon, in a room and plan for 4 hours, they will not feel like they need to hurry and decide.  If they know (because they hear footsteps, or have encountered previously) that reinforcements could come any minute, they will hurry up.
Setting a deadline (as in something will happen in x amount of time, if you let it)

Use Chekov's Gun/Foreshadowing:
If you've got some item or spell that would help defeat the BBEG, make sure it appears in the early part of the adventure (before they really set off to defeat him).  This is actually a clue, you're giving them as to one way to beat the bad guy.  Don't be too obvious, watch just about any sci-fi show, and you'll see the new trick used early in the episode for something harmless, and later on, it gets used to save the day.  That's checkov's gun.

Cut to the chase:
if the 100 mile trip to somewhere cool is just a bunch of random encounters along the way, skip it.  Just say "four days later, you arrive"  Save game time for the cool scenes that advance the story.

Real action films have less fights than a D&D game:
Cut back on the meaningless fights.  Instead, make them tougher.  D&D takes a long time to play, compared to watching a movie or TV show.  You can't model them exactly, but you can scale back the meaningless fights, to get to just the good ones.  Don't pass over them, just don't make so many extra monsters waiting to be attacked.  Stock up on action film DVDs and start taking notes.  How many fights were there?  You'll get a sense of the average count.

All roads lead to Rome
By all means, don't actually do this literally.  If the BBEG is south, and the PCs go north, they leave the BBEG far behind.  But what you can do, is have the BBEG embroiled in a number of things, that happen to intersect the PCs.  This gives multiple vectors for the PCs to pick up on the BBEG and decide to deal with him.

Make it personal.
Whether by chance or intention, the BBEG does something that affects the PCs or their interests.  Otherwise, there is less chance the PCs will care to get involved.  There are stories where the protagonist just happens to involve themselves in somebody else's problems, but most of that died out in the 80's (unless it was their job).  The players, being egocentric, will also appreciate stuf that is about them.

That's just a few techniques.  There's more, and there's variations, and there's more to be said to refine what I said.


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## Starfox (Feb 9, 2010)

I consider myself a storytelling GM, but I also consider the difference to be overstated. The best I can do here is to describe how I do things. 

On the campaign level I am very much a storytelling GM, and to me the central thing about storytelling is entwining stories into each other. Each player and the GM has their own stories. As a GM I also have a lot of optional story hooks players can bit - or not. Sometimes I craft a story hood for one player (occasionally to have another player actually bite) but generally I try to make the hooks pretty neutral and available to all. I sometimes railroad, mainly because my players rarely have an agenda. Mostly I do this when presenting a scenario. Sometimes we have an out-of-game discussion about what the players want to do, then I prepare that scenario and we run it next session. Having multiple scenario hooks, some of which are not taken is too much work for me. Furbishing "refused" scenarios with new hooks really doesn't seem fun either. 

On the session/scenario level, I find a sandbox approach works much better. While I try to keep the players engaged and the game moving, discouraging overlong planning sessions, I try and avoid having a "perfect" solution and enjoy when the players find a clever shortcut or jump to conclusions - right or wrong.


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## rogueattorney (Feb 9, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> And for me, that's a hallmark of storytelling in games: consequences. Actions should have consequences. Good or bad, small or huge, what the PCs do should make ripples in the world, and they should eventually see signs of this.




Which, to me, is the hallmark of a traditional D&D campaign.  The players act and the environment responds.  Go back to your copy of B2 and read the section where Gygax writes about what should happen should the pcs clear out a section of the Caves.  That's classic dungeon-delving, "hack and slash" neanderthal D&D, which supposedly is the anathema of "modern, enlightened, story-oriented rpging."

No one who's advocating "sand boxing" is advocating a static game world that snaps back into place once the pcs have left.  That's actually contrary to the whole point of giving the players control.  You want them to ambitiously pursue their own goals and effect the world in some way.


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## TarionzCousin (Feb 9, 2010)

Thoughtful, articulate, and above all else: dedicated to his game.

Pretty much like this:


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## rogueattorney (Feb 9, 2010)

Janx said:


> Establish a sense of urgency in combat:
> real combat is quick and choppy.  Rushed. Each action is NOT optimized and planned for 10 minutes.  I have a blog article on making combat faster.  Read that, use it, those are the methods.




This is a presentation technique that's independent of the sandbox/not-a-sandbox issue.  



> Establish a sense of urgency outside of combat:
> If the PCs are in a situation where they should feel rushed, because they don't have all night, you should bring in game elements to remind them of that.  wandering monsters are a good tool (or any patrol), when the party is in hostile territory and dithering on taking action, when in reality, they would get noticed.  If you let the PCs sit in a populated dungeon, in a room and plan for 4 hours, they will not feel like they need to hurry and decide.  If they know (because they hear footsteps, or have encountered previously) that reinforcements could come any minute, they will hurry up.  Setting a deadline (as in something will happen in x amount of time, if you let it)




Wandering monsters are a staple of the sand-box and a device to make it seem like a living world.  After all, those orcs get up and walk around every once in a while.  I've more often seen "story tellers" complain of random wandering monsters derailing their plot.



> Use Chekov's Gun/Foreshadowing:
> If you've got some item or spell that would help defeat the BBEG, make sure it appears in the early part of the adventure (before they really set off to defeat him).  This is actually a clue, you're giving them as to one way to beat the bad guy.  Don't be too obvious, watch just about any sci-fi show, and you'll see the new trick used early in the episode for something harmless, and later on, it gets used to save the day.  That's checkov's gun.




I'll get to the concept of the BBEG in a second, but otherwise, isn't this just about good dungeon design?



> Cut to the chase:
> if the 100 mile trip to somewhere cool is just a bunch of random encounters along the way, skip it.  Just say "four days later, you arrive"  Save game time for the cool scenes that advance the story.




Does anyone not do this?



> Real action films have less fights than a D&D game:
> Cut back on the meaningless fights.  Instead, make them tougher.  D&D takes a long time to play, compared to watching a movie or TV show.  You can't model them exactly, but you can scale back the meaningless fights, to get to just the good ones.  Don't pass over them, just don't make so many extra monsters waiting to be attacked.  Stock up on action film DVDs and start taking notes.  How many fights were there?  You'll get a sense of the average count.




O.K.  Here's where we get somewhere.  This entire paragraph assumes that I'm the one that plans the fights.  As a DM, I'm the one that places the pieces on the board.  Whether the pcs fight those pieces or not is not entirely in my control.  It takes two to tango, as they say.

I don't place everything in the dungeon or in the wilderness assuming the pcs are going to fight them.



> All roads lead to Rome
> By all means, don't actually do this literally.  If the BBEG is south, and the PCs go north, they leave the BBEG far behind.  But what you can do, is have the BBEG embroiled in a number of things, that happen to intersect the PCs.  This gives multiple vectors for the PCs to pick up on the BBEG and decide to deal with him.
> 
> Make it personal.
> Whether by chance or intention, the BBEG does something that affects the PCs or their interests.  Otherwise, there is less chance the PCs will care to get involved.  There are stories where the protagonist just happens to involve themselves in somebody else's problems, but most of that died out in the 80's (unless it was their job).  The players, being egocentric, will also appreciate stuf that is about them.




I don't have a "BBEG" in my campaigns and I certainly don't mechanize towards a preordained confrontation with anyone.  I have movers and shakers.  They go about doing what they do.  Sometimes the pcs run afoul of them.  Sometimes they run afoul of the pcs.  If the pcs decide to confront one of them, great.  If not, great.  

In my B/X game set in Rob Conley's Borderland PoL setting, there's two sides to a civil war, a little village that's just trying to scrape by, a Duchy that's proclaimed neutrality and is isolating itself, there's a former Imperial governor who's trying to retake his birthright, there's a big group of bandits picking off the remnants, there's a sinister old sage who's predicting the end of the world and may be actively working to make his prediction come true, and there's a whole mess of orcs who see the chaos and are licking their chops.  There's also a big ole dungeon that's a prison for fallen gods.  

I haven't the slightest idea if the pcs will pick a side, and if they do who it will be, but generally I assume that the pcs will be fighting on the pcs' side and no one else's.


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## Mark (Feb 9, 2010)

Best.Storyteller.Evar





TarionzCousin said:


> Thoughtful, articulate, and above all else: dedicated to his game.
> 
> Pretty much like this:


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## Ariosto (Feb 9, 2010)

Phil Goetz, from Richard A. Bartle: Interactive Fiction and Computers ...
"_Interactive fiction does not equal adventures"_


> Unless players can find reasons to play other than to win, IF will not escape the literary ghettos of genre fiction. Even some traditional traditional-genre stories would lose their charm under the imposition of a different character; imagine The Hobbit with a self-confident and aggressive Bilbo Baggins, or an interactive Father Brown mystery played by a Humphrey Bogart fan.
> 
> In particular, truly tragic fiction might never work in IF. I'm not referring to 'tragedies' such as Hamlet, which are melely sad. I'm referring to works such as 1984, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness or Deliverance, in which it is dramatically necessary for the main character to be psychically crushed. The IF player might feel that giving them the freedom to choose how to act had been a cruel farce.
> 
> One way to keep players from identifying too closely with the protagonist might be to have them interact with several characters. They might change viewpoints, or might simply have a display panel with a point-and click interface controlling the emotional response of each character (level of anger, contentment, fear, urgency, etc.) and see how the story unfolds. But this defeats the intimacy of IF.


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## Ariosto (Feb 9, 2010)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> And for me, that's a hallmark of storytelling in games: consequences. Actions should have consequences. Good or bad, small or huge, what the PCs do should make ripples in the world, and they should eventually see signs of this.



For me, that's a hallmark of the D&D game *as a game*. Or at least it used to be. The vogue in recent years has been to _strip away_ consequences, to proclaim them "not fun".

I cannot fathom how, "Actions should have consequences," can be seen as _opposed to_ "Provide an interesting and challenging environment for the players to explore and then administer that environment totally impartially."



			
				Janx said:
			
		

> That's just a few techniques.  There's more, and there's variations, and there's more to be said to refine what I said.



Sure, and Gygax said quite a bit in the 1st ed. DMG -- which I'm pretty sure P&P has taken to heart!

"All roads lead to Rome" is the exception. That _is_ 'railroading' -- unless your "not literally" is so far removed from a rigged game that you are just abusing the terminology.

Do you _really_ think the other techniques are what's being rejected in, "The role of a superior DM is NOT to tell a story to his or her players."?


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## KidSnide (Feb 9, 2010)

rogueattorney said:


> The story-telling proponents say that they aren't advocating railroading.  Fine.  But I don't understand what they ARE advocating.  I ask for in-game examples and I tend to get the following...
> 
> A.  You can't railroad the willing.  They aren't advocating railroading so much as advocating playing with players who don't care.
> 
> ...




Well, I'll try to give some examples of potentially good storytelling technique that would be much less commonly employed in a more sand box oriented game.  Are they examples of "A" (or maybe "B")?  I don't think so, but intelligent people could probably differ on that point.  In any case, I think storyteller GMs take more control over what happens in the game.  Here are two examples:


"The GM decides what the next adventure will be."

The GM doesn't decide what the next adventure will be in-game.  There's no mystical force preventing the PCs from picking a different adventure, it's just that the universe is set up so that the GM's next adventure is the logical thing to do.  IME, the most common example is that the PCs work for someone and are invested in their careers.  They have the power to quit their jobs and go do something else, but that's a big deal and the GM is on mostly safe ground in assuming that the PCs will do what their employer asks.  

The advantage of this is that the GM has more world knowledge than the PCs and is better situated to decide what would be the most fun.  Once the PCs get to the adventure, it can be as sandboxy as the GM wants, but it's a big help to planning when you know which situation to prepare.  Also - and maybe more importantly - the GM can guide the PCs towards the situations in which they have the most leverage over the game world and their actions can produce the most interesting consequences.


"The GM can include a plan with a situation."

One of the differences that's been discussed up thread is how much time the GM allows the PCs to discuss what they're going to do.  One way to "cut to the good part" is to set up a situation and give the players an acceptable default plan.  For example, if the PCs are trying to hunt down a notorious pirate (who is otherwise unimportant to the other things that are going on), the GM can say "here's a way you think would work."  

The PCs are free to ignore the default plan and spend a couple hours planning an alternative.  But, if there are no interesting consequences to the exact manner in which how powerful and well-connected PCs hunt down a less powerful and unconnected pirate, then it's a waste of time having the players figure out the plan, even though knowing the plan is relevant to setting up the subsequent fight.

I don't think this is intrinsically different than skipping over four weeks journey.  It's just that a story telling GM has a stronger opinion about which parts of the game will be the most fun to play and so is more willing to designate something "a boring bit" and skip over it.

-KS


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## Janx (Feb 9, 2010)

rogueattorney said:


> This is a presentation technique that's independent of the sandbox/not-a-sandbox issue.




I never said this was a sandbox/not-a-sandbox issue.  

I've always advocated that storytelling techniques can enhance your GMing.  Period.

If you say that a chunk of the techniques I mention are used in your sandbox, good.  I say that if you don't use those techniques, a campaign will likely suck.

I think, therefore, we don't disagree.


I don't think I run a true sandbox.  I do take player input, and make the "story" about them and what goals they pursue.  So once they choose a goal, I CAN predict the obstacles to put in front of them.  Thus, I can choose what monsters they will face.  At least on paper.

When the rubber hits the road, the players are free to deviate and bypass my roadmap of how I thought they'd get to the BBEG they chose to hunt down.

That's the crux of NOT railroading.  It's not about what you got written down, it's about changing the game according to the players choices.  Recycling what material you can, but ultimately letting the party deal with consequences.  A railroading DM would take my roadmap, and force the players down it.  

This is why I feel an AdventurePath isn't a railroad.  The DM is.  No plan survives contact with the enemy.  A railroad DM forgets this rule, and forces the players to stick to the documented plan.


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## KidSnide (Feb 9, 2010)

Janx said:


> That's the crux of NOT railroading.  It's not about what you got written down, it's about changing the game according to the players choices.  Recycling what material you can, but ultimately letting the party deal with consequences.  A railroading DM would take my roadmap, and force the players down it.
> 
> This is why I feel an AdventurePath isn't a railroad.  The DM is.  No plan survives contact with the enemy.  A railroad DM forgets this rule, and forces the players to stick to the documented plan.




QFT.  The difference between a road and a railroad is that, when you're on a railroad, the PCs can't veer left just because it looks more interesting.

-KS


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## Barastrondo (Feb 10, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> For me, that's a hallmark of the D&D game *as a game*. Or at least it used to be. The vogue in recent years has been to _strip away_ consequences, to proclaim them "not fun".




Or to replace certain consequences with certain other consequences, or simply to adjust the frequency with which they appear. If death is a less likely consequence, be it a factor of D&D edition or of picking a different game as a whole, there's usually other ways to get the players involved in the fallout from their decisions. Champions is a good example of a game with a relatively low mortality rate but with lots of consequences for characters (usually 100-150 points worth that are begging to be used!). Certainly, proclaiming certain consequences like death or energy drain "not fun" doesn't make them un-fun for players who enjoy those consequences — but at the same time, proclaiming them "fun" doesn't make it so for players who _don't_. 

I'm probably more on the storytelling side when I run, though I doubt that word really gives anyone an accurate picture of what my style is. It even varies from game to game. Hints and nudges toward a new adventure get more obvious and pronounced when I've got a couple of players who face long workdays full of decisions and would like not to have to think too hard about picking their next target or unraveling a plot. Hints at what's going on behind the scenes are less blatant when I've got the proactive players who will poke and prod and uncover them without much help. And when it's a gregarious band of social roleplayers given a social situation, we can fritter away hours with nothing of life-and-death consequence happening — but grave and dire consequences such as a wine-stained cravat and an ill-fated engagement? Serious stuff!


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## The Shaman (Feb 10, 2010)

rogueattorney said:


> Which, to me, is the hallmark of a traditional D&D campaign.  The players act and the environment responds.  Go back to your copy of B2 and read the section where Gygax writes about what should happen should the pcs clear out a section of the Caves.  That's classic dungeon-delving, "hack and slash" neanderthal D&D, which supposedly is the anathema of "modern, enlightened, story-oriented rpging."
> 
> No one who's advocating "sand boxing" is advocating a static game world that snaps back into place once the pcs have left.  That's actually contrary to the whole point of giving the players control.  You want them to ambitiously pursue their own goals and affect the world in some way.



Yeah, I'm not seeing the "storytelling" here, just evocative descriptions and a sense of what the npcs are doing.

Seems pretty trad to me.


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## Starfox (Feb 10, 2010)

The Shaman said:


> Yeah, I'm not seeing the "storytelling" here, just evocative descriptions and a sense of what the npcs are doing.




I think we all have different ideas of what storytelling means. On top of that, it means different tings in different circumstances. 

Just a few of the things storytelling RPGs can be from my personal experience:
Railroading
A narration technique while playing a scenario
Any kind of narrative role-play
The campaign flow from one scenario to another, with a connecting superplot
A campaign journal written by a player that puts all the actions of this character into narrative focus, creating a personal "story" the other players can barely see in play
"An adventure is a series of connected fights - TWERPS"

This list is by no means exhaustive, nor are all these things nessecarily storytelling RPG techniques, I just want to say that the term is bu no means well define. It is a derogative to some, a buzzword to others, and gospel to a few. If we want to dsicuss it at depth, we might have to start discussing what we mean by the word.


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## Ariosto (Feb 10, 2010)

Barastrondo, death does not appear to me quite terribly hard to find; I have had a 4e character come within one point of it in one round, and seen another character buy the farm thanks to "friendly fire".

But that's not really so much of a 'consequence' if (as suggested in the 4e DMG) a replacement character is going to be of "party level", whatever that happens to be whenever it happens to get built.

Heck, considering how comprehensively the 'build' dictates factors, it's close enough to automatic resurrection! (YMMV on the 'identity' question, of course.)

What get ditched are consequences with which one might actually _have to deal_. The 'encounter' gets turned into an isolated game. Alignment is essentially moot, and relationships with NPCs -- henchmen, hirelings, followers and subjects -- have been ripped out. Decisions matter less and less in everything from what happens in the imagined world, to how rapidly characters gain levels. What choices get offered are by design often -- and _increasingly_, in the shift from 3e to 4e -- trivial.

The very basic concept that it's a game is undermined at every turn.



> Certainly, proclaiming certain consequences like death or energy drain "not fun" doesn't make them un-fun for players who enjoy those consequences — but at the same time, proclaiming them "fun" doesn't make it so for players who _don't_.



Might it someday occur to the "New & Improved" crowd that this truism goes both ways? What is _not_ going both ways is the carrying out of programs to replace "inferior" forms of fun (e.g., D&D, WHFRP) with what a faction of people -- who have not wanted for other games, more to their tastes -- happens to prefer. So be it, but can we at least keep the rationale real? The existence of "old school" D&D (or WHFRP, or whatever is next to the scaffold) was no oppressive force preventing people who preferred Ars Magica, Champions, Rifts, Shadowrun, World of Darkness, or whatever, from playing their games!


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## Ariosto (Feb 10, 2010)

Starfox said:
			
		

> If we want to dsicuss it at depth, we might have to start discussing what we mean by the word.



I do not think it too much to ask, that if we are to discuss what a particular person wrote in a particular text, we should consider what *he* meant by the word.

We might even get the word right, and in this case the word is in fact a phrase.

"Tell a story to the players" is _not_ identical with "storytelling"!

"Superior players will be able to create a character-driven, interactive *story* from these raw materials, and neither the players nor the GM can tell where the *story* is headed." Is there an absolute absence of *story* in that?


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## Jhaelen (Feb 10, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> The very basic concept that it's a game is undermined at every turn.



This comment makes me wonder:

What is your definition of a game?


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## Barastrondo (Feb 10, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Barastrondo, death does not appear to me quite terribly hard to find; I have had a 4e character come within one point of it in one round, and seen another character buy the farm thanks to "friendly fire".
> 
> But that's not really so much of a 'consequence' if (as suggested in the 4e DMG) a replacement character is going to be of "party level", whatever that happens to be whenever it happens to get built.
> 
> Heck, considering how comprehensively the 'build' dictates factors, it's close enough to automatic resurrection! (YMMV on the 'identity' question, of course.)




_Really_ depends on the players. At one end of the spectrum, you're absolutely right: one game token has been lost, and can be replaced with another token, one which may in fact be better optimized. At the other end, though, a player loses all manner of personalized roleplaying connections, from family and romantic entanglements to social ties and aspirations. It's about as satisfying as watching a really good TV show get canceled into its first season when it had enough plotlines for five. Most people probably fall somewhere in between, and it's hard to say where the majority is, but I'd guess the group who cares about a specific character as a persona is not a scant minority.



> What get ditched are consequences with which one might actually _have to deal_. The 'encounter' gets turned into an isolated game. Alignment is essentially moot, and relationships with NPCs -- henchmen, hirelings, followers and subjects -- have been ripped out. Decisions matter less and less in everything from what happens in the imagined world, to how rapidly characters gain levels. What choices get offered are by design often -- and _increasingly_, in the shift from 3e to 4e -- trivial.




Again, vastly depends on the group. I find that there's been a steady increase in relationships with NPCs in most of the D&D games I've seen, starting right around 2e. The difference is that you spend more time relating to peers than vassals. While that may subtract a bit from the idea that the PCs are very special, given that there are other characters of their level as they ascend, on the other hand it makes certain roleplaying goals like romantic interests more satisfying. A player frequently is more interested in winning the heart of an NPC who is her equal than in obtaining the devotion of a hireling. Alignment is frequently moot, yes: but that's an outright feature rather than a bug to many groups out there. Villains become harder to spot and more complex. Player characters are defined by "what I would do" rather than "what a lawful good character would do." 

I don't find that the replacement of certain sticks with certain carrots makes for worse roleplaying or more shallow character development. I think it simply makes another game option, one in which certain roleplayers prosper more even as other roleplayers don't.



> The very basic concept that it's a game is undermined at every turn.




I don't agree. I think it becomes much less of a competitive game, and there's certainly not much D&D-as-"sport" element to it, but it's very much still a game. 



> Might it someday occur to the "New & Improved" crowd that this truism goes both ways? What is _not_ going both ways is the carrying out of programs to replace "inferior" forms of fun (e.g., D&D, WHFRP) with what a faction of people -- who have not wanted for other games, more to their tastes -- happens to prefer. So be it, but can we at least keep the rationale real? The existence of "old school" D&D (or WHFRP, or whatever is next to the scaffold) was no oppressive force preventing people who preferred Ars Magica, Champions, Rifts, Shadowrun, World of Darkness, or whatever, from playing their games!




The existence of 4e is not an oppressive force preventing people who prefer older editions or new Old School Revolution from playing their games, either. It's basically another game option, and I think that's great! 

When you have fewer RPGs on the market, frequently you would run into the issue that although everyone was technically playing D&D, they could be dramatically different styles. So someone who's always played hardcore Gygaxian D&D might join a group that started in the late 80s, was inspired by recent fantasy fiction, and basically threw out a lot of the consequences anyway as irrelevant to the kind of D&D they wanted to play. That player would be miserably unhappy (unless he found that the new group was a lot of fun, just different). Similarly, a new player who was more interested in long-term character development might be killed out of a more hardcore D&D game early, and decide that gaming wasn't really her cup of tea when the truth was that this particular style of play wasn't her cup of tea. 

This may be something others disagree with, but I happen to feel that new editions don't themselves splinter the D&D fanbase: I think every notable shift is a sign that the fanbase was already splintered stylistically, and it's another faction's turn to write the D&D that in some ways they've always been playing. Now there are more games for everyone to play as written instead of trying to make a game system designed for someone else's style of play fit. This is a cool thing.


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## Psion (Feb 10, 2010)

SkidAce said:


> Proactive versus reactive, storytelling versus passive referee, you guys are hitting the nail on the head.  But to call it old school versus new school, I just don't see it.




I agree. Tav could have a good discussion here, but I'm having trouble hearing over the sound of my internal voices debating his definitions.


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## KidSnide (Feb 10, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> But that's not really so much of a 'consequence' if (as suggested in the 4e DMG) a replacement character is going to be of "party level", whatever that happens to be whenever it happens to get built.
> 
> Heck, considering how comprehensively the 'build' dictates factors, it's close enough to automatic resurrection! (YMMV on the 'identity' question, of course.)




At the risk of piling on, this seems like a very strange complaint to me.  I suppose if you're playing a game in which the characters are nothing more than collections of stats, then - yes, dying isn't much of a penalty if you can easily recreate a nearly identical character.  

But if you're playing a game in which the characters have meaningful relationships with the world and the NPCs (and other PCs) within it, then losing a character can be a very large penalty.  When you have players who have been playing the same characters for over a decade, they get _very_ attached to their characters.  That sort of death isn't the sort of narrative that you play lightly.  That they could create a new character with nearly identical _capabilities_ doesn't let them re-create the same character.



Ariosto said:


> What get ditched are consequences with which one might actually _have to deal_. The 'encounter' gets turned into an isolated game. Alignment is essentially moot, and relationships with NPCs -- henchmen, hirelings, followers and subjects -- have been ripped out. Decisions matter less and less in everything from what happens in the imagined world, to how rapidly characters gain levels. What choices get offered are by design often -- and _increasingly_, in the shift from 3e to 4e -- trivial.
> 
> The very basic concept that it's a game is undermined at every turn.




Again, I don't follow the connection between these issues.  Yes, an encounter is resolved as a sub-game, but there can be (and should be) narrative consequences to losing that sub-game.  Even if the PCs don't die, they could fail a quest or need to figure out another approach.  

But how does this relate to alignment?  (Are you thinking of a game in which, if the PCs don't act in a particular way, the GM says that they are acting "out of alignment" and penalizes the clerics?)  How does this relate to henchmen, hirelings, followers and subjects?  Are most NPC interactions with these classes of people?  Do characters stop assuming leadership roles in organizations because they are playing in 4e?

Ariosto, I think this relates to your definition of "game."  I agree that meaningful consequences are crucially important to RPGs, but I don't see how the particular elements you identified make consequences less meaningful.

-KS


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## Psion (Feb 10, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> Both 3e and 4e have tremendously flexible mechanics that you can bend to almost any purpose. Take advantage of that. Figure out what skills, feats and class features the PCs possess and _make sure you give them a reason to use every one._ Some of the best advice I've gotten is that a cool PC feature that they never get to use is worse than not having it in the first place -- so build in opportunities for your PCs to use their cool toys, and have the story react to their actions.




This is a big gun (perhaps _The_ Big Gun) in my adventure design arsenal. This advice is echoed by an excellent post by Evil Hat's Fred Hicks about the Secret Language of Character Sheets. Players will generally choose to make characters that can do things that they find fun. So you, as a GM, should take this as a laundry list of things that the players find fun.

Or, at the very least, if the ability wasn't explicitly chosen by the player (such as being part of the class or package deal), you'll remove the lingering feeling that some aspect of their character was useless, and overall help to build the feeling that they are playing an important role in bringing about success in the game. Which, for me, is the ultimate measure of balance in a game.

Take caution, though. A player might choose abilities they let them minimize conditions they anticipate that they don't find fun. So watch out for those.


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## Ariosto (Feb 10, 2010)

Barastrondo said:
			
		

> Again, vastly depends on the group.



See, one can say that about _anything_. "Does playing D&D involve [insert events depicted in Jack Chick tract] or [events depicted in TV-movie based on Rona Jaffre novel]?" Well, it depends on the group!

So, I have confined myself to remarks upon the game as presented in the 4E PHB and DMG.



> This may be something others disagree with, but I happen to feel that new editions don't themselves splinter the D&D fanbase



I don't consider folks who loathe X with a passion to be part of the "fan base" for X. If I were to restore the 1970s D&D game by any approximation, and put 4E out of print, I would hardly expect the 4E fans to count me among their number. What would Pat Pulling (were she yet alive) want for their favorite game? Why, the same thing: to put it out of print! So, no, these 'editions' are not splintering the fan base; they are pitting *different* fandoms against each other.



> Now there are more games for everyone to play as written instead of trying to make a game system designed for someone else's style of play fit. This is a cool thing.



Right. It was soooo "uncool" to release Vampire in the first place, instead of calling it a 'new edition' of Ars Magica or Call of Cthulhu or something. How many games has White Wolf had in print at the same time? Bad, bad White Wolf! No more new games for you, until you reissue Exalted as "D&D X".


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## Gimby (Feb 10, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Right. It was soooo "uncool" to release Vampire in the first place, instead of calling it a 'new edition' of Ars Magica or Call of Cthulhu or something. How many games has White Wolf had in print at the same time? Bad, bad White Wolf! No more new games for you, until you reissue Exalted as "D&D X".




Are you talking about Vampire:The Masquerade, Vampire:The Masquerade Second Edition, Vampire:The Masquerade Revised or Vampire: The Requiem here?

-edit or for something a little closer to the point for anyone who remembers the flame wars, Mage: The Ascension, Mage: The Ascension Revised or Mage: The Awakening?


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## Barastrondo (Feb 10, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> See, one can say that about _anything_. "Does playing D&D involve [insert events depicted in Jack Chick tract] or [events depicted in TV-movie based on Rona Jaffre novel]?" Well, it depends on the group!
> 
> So, I have confined myself to remarks upon the game as presented in the 4E PHB and DMG.




I can't help but think that if you don't take actual play into account, then you're really talking more about a reading experience than a roleplaying game. Things like the "weapon types vs. armor types" table of 1e make for a reading experience that implies baroque simulation, but don't convey what the game is like with the many, many groups who just ignore those. To use Vampire for another example, "trenchcoats & katanas" is a catchphrase that sums up what the game can be as played, rather than as written. 



> I don't consider folks who loathe X with a passion to be part of the "fan base" for X. If I were to restore the 1970s D&D game by any approximation, and put 4E out of print, I would hardly expect the 4E fans to count me among their number. What would Pat Pulling (were she yet alive) want for their favorite game? Why, the same thing: to put it out of print! So, no, these 'editions' are not splintering the fan base; they are pitting *different* fandoms against each other.




The trouble is, there's really no reason for anyone to accept your exclusion. I love D&D; been playing it since I was 10. I don't like level drain and never have. Now, the thing is, you can say that I loathe D&D with a passion because I don't like level drain and level drain was in D&D at the time I was rabidly playing it. But is that accurate? Or is it more that people can like a game for different reasons, and play it in ways that play up the elements that they like and discard the ones they don't? 

It sucks that not everyone's favorite game or edition can be in print at the same time. I agree! It's one of those things, along with "there should be more people playing tabletop RPGs overall and there shouldn't be any social stigma attached" that would really be nice for the hobby. I feel the same way about the inability to get my hands on old video games for consoles that aren't supported any more. That said, given that not everything can be in print at the time, I do like the variety of options that stems from deciding to retire tailing-off game lines and publish new ones. After all, the old games and styles are still being played. It's more reliant on GMs being positive ambassadors for their style of play, as you can't simply rely on being the only game in town, but hey, I think that's a good thing for all GMs to be doing regardless of circumstance.



> Right. It was soooo "uncool" to release Vampire in the first place, instead of calling it a 'new edition' of Ars Magica or Call of Cthulhu or something. How many games has White Wolf had in print at the same time? Bad, bad White Wolf! No more new games for you, until you reissue Exalted as "D&D X".




Can I ask you to scale back the sarcasm for a moment? It's obscuring your point something fierce.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 10, 2010)

Gimby said:


> Are you talking about Vampire:The Masquerade, Vampire:The Masquerade Second Edition, Vampire:The Masquerade Revised or Vampire: The Requiem here?
> 
> -edit or for something a little closer to the point for anyone who remembers the flame wars, Mage: The Ascension, Mage: The Ascension Revised or Mage: The Awakening?




Boy, is there ever a lot to be said for how play experiences vary from reading experiences based on how those games have developed. With the existence of all the Mages around, you can more readily get a feel for what someone thinks is "an ideal Mage" based on whether it's Ascension, Ascension Revised, or Awakening. 

Unfortunately, just like with D&D, it's really hard to find places free of players who go all factionalized and personal over these things. And again, it really sucks that not everything can be kept in print. I'd love to have all the oWoD editions and all the nWoD games side-by-side on store shelves, but that's regrettably not what the stores want.


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## maddman75 (Feb 10, 2010)

I reject the dichotomy of sandbox vs storytelling.  I consider what I do to be 'story-creating'.

Essentially, I view any plot or events that I introduce as vehicles for players to explore their characters.  To prove themselves true to what they aim or reveal themselves to be less than that.  I take what the players give me and use that to introduce new scenarios.  I consider the GM's job to be introducing conflicts, and arbitrating how they deal with those conflicts.  This, along with paying attention to pacing, I've found tends to make really interesting gaming.

I wanted to respond to this as well.



> Unless players can find reasons to play other than to win, IF will not escape the literary ghettos of genre fiction. Even some traditional traditional-genre stories would lose their charm under the imposition of a different character; imagine The Hobbit with a self-confident and aggressive Bilbo Baggins, or an interactive Father Brown mystery played by a Humphrey Bogart fan.
> 
> In particular, truly tragic fiction might never work in IF. I'm not referring to 'tragedies' such as Hamlet, which are melely sad. I'm referring to works such as 1984, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness or Deliverance, in which it is dramatically necessary for the main character to be psychically crushed. The IF player might feel that giving them the freedom to choose how to act had been a cruel farce.
> 
> One way to keep players from identifying too closely with the protagonist might be to have them interact with several characters. They might change viewpoints, or might simply have a display panel with a point-and click interface controlling the emotional response of each character (level of anger, contentment, fear, urgency, etc.) and see how the story unfolds. But this defeats the intimacy of IF.




I've experiened games that are played for reasons other than 'to win'.  Why play them?  Why read a book where the hero doesn't always come out on top?  I recall an oWoD game.  I'm going to commit a gamer sin and talk about my character, but its relevant.

Billy was a southern rock guitar player that was embraced into clan Toreador - the artistes.  My Sire thought that my playing should be preseved for eternity.  He didn't really get into the angst, Billy *loved* being a vampire.  As the game progressed he got more and more arrogant and power hungry.  He started killing indiscriminately and his morality started circling the drain.  His music started taking off and he played out the 'rock star' theme.  He thought nothing could touch him and there were no consequences for his actions.  He died basically because he'd rather spit in the face of a local prince than turn tail and run.  

I have a character in my hunter game that is going down the drain as well.  I have a whole group that plays for reasons other than 'to win'.


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## Ariosto (Feb 10, 2010)

I have _discounted_ some actual play -- specifically, RPGA play -- in considering aspects in which it is notably eccentric relative to the game as presented in the texts.

The fact of taking the rulebook (!) into account is not the same as taking no account of actual play, unless it were the case that the two were utterly unrelated (in which case, it is obscure on what basis one might expect any given example of actual play to resemble any other, or indeed to what end one might offer a 'new edition' in the first place). I do not think you have considered carefully the implications of your suggestion!

I accept that those who have claimed to loathe with a passion this or that 'edition' are being honest.

Does sarcasm really obscure the point? Then I guess I must spell out that you have held up as an increase in wealth what is in fact at best a zero-sum game of "I've got mine, Jack, get yours." If you seriously believed I would believe that no new game could be published under a new name, then you must have supposed me so ignorant of your company's history.

Even if one is determined not in fact to _increase_ the range of offerings, it is still possible to present under a different name something that is in fact different. Firms do that with _the same thing_, even!

If the game that once was called D&D was such a horrible imposition on people who did not like it, then how is 4e not just as horrible? How is not _any_ game just as bad? I mean, RuneQuest uses d%, and does not have character classes or levels or experience points; it is in way after way quite different from 4e! Tunnels & Trolls has classes and levels and experience points, but is in other ways as mutually incomprehensible with old D&D as is 4e. If you want 'builds" without petty limits, and really super-duper heroes, and far-out tactical combat with miniatures on a grid, then Champions has got you covered -- but it also is not 4e.

And, surprise, surprise ... well, not really, for those of us who not only are acquainted with the industry's history but have lived through it ... _not one of those other games is called Dungeons & Dragons_.

Against that, the evidence you offer that any new game from WotC must be called D&D is -- what? The evidence that WotC cannot offer more than one game is what? You just throw out these unsupported claims as if they were Newton's Laws.


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## Ariosto (Feb 10, 2010)

maddman75 said:
			
		

> I reject the dichotomy of sandbox vs storytelling.



With the handle of "maddman", you pave the way for rejecting all sorts of dichotomies. However, I think you jump the gun with 'sandbox'; that appears to mean absolutely whatever anyone happens to want it to mean at the moment, including "Qwrxts! Gzntschlf chssvmng hllfhgh vwrth?" So, it is not really handy for holding up one end of a dichotomy in the first place.


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## Piratecat (Feb 10, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Does sarcasm really obscure the point?



Yes. You're coming across as hostile and with a chip on your shoulder, and that's starting to obscure the discussion. I'd appreciate it if you'd ratchet back a bit.


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## Piratecat (Feb 10, 2010)

The best example of "not a storytelling game" I can give is when the ENW moderators were lucky enough to play with Gary Gygax at GenCon several years ago, delving into the first layer of the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk. Rel did a fascinating job of writing this up (and I'm still bitter that a gelatinous cube ate my mule!), but I was a little surprised that the game was nothing like my own DMing style. There was no plot at all, no theme to the monsters, and no attempt by Gary to steer us in any direction whatsoever. We chose where in the ruins to descend; we chose what doors to enter, and where we went. We surprised monsters or they surprised us, but even after going through several empty rooms in what I'd consider uncomfortable pacing, what we encountered was dictated solely by what was written on the map beforehand.

This was true to the extent that none of the rooms had any decor or furniture in them at all, and I mentioned it; Gary looked a little embarrassed and said that he had left the random dungeon trimming table at home. 

We had a spectacular time, of course, and I'm going to remember that game for a long time. Seeing this emphasized to me that my own style tends more towards the plot-driven and cinematic than the old-school dungeon delves.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 10, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> I have _discounted_ some actual play -- specifically, RPGA play -- in considering aspects in which it is notably eccentric relative to the game as presented in the texts.
> 
> The fact of taking the rulebook (!) into account is not the same as taking no account of actual play, unless it were the case that the two were utterly unrelated (in which case, it is obscure on what basis one might expect any given example of actual play to resemble any other, or indeed to what end one might offer a 'new edition' in the first place). I do not think you have considered carefully the implications of your suggestion!




I'm sorry, Ariosto, but in regards to the original example of death being, or not being, a consequence because a character is so easily replaced, you really can't get the entire story from mechanics alone. All you have is how much time it takes to assemble a new character mechanically, and zero idea of how much roleplaying attachment a player might have to said character. You have to assume some level of actual play experience to get anywhere close to accuracy.



> Even if one is determined not in fact to _increase_ the range of offerings, it is still possible to present under a different name something that is in fact different. Firms do that with _the same thing_, even!




But I'm not sure what the argument to do so is, other than perhaps "I've got mine, Jack, you go get yours." Not everyone shares the same loyalty to the same aspects of D&D, particularly when you're talking about gamers who started on Basic rather than Original or Advanced. It's like those four-armed insect dudes from Battlestar Galactica. I used to have a toy of one when I was a kid. They were an aspect I liked, and Ron Moore not so much. But I don't think he had no right to make a BSG that didn't feature the buggies, or that if he created something that was 80% old-school BSG rather than 95% that he should have found another name for it. 



> If the game that once was called D&D was such a horrible imposition on people who did not like it, then how is 4e not just as horrible?




Out of curiosity, who's been claiming that the game itself was such a horrible imposition? I've always seen that RPGs are compilations of different elements, some more popular than others. Again, the example of energy drain. Particular elements might be controversial, but no one element is the sum of the game. I've never thought that earlier editions were some sort of horrible imposition on the people who didn't love every element wholeheartedly. People who hated energy drain still loved D&D, they just liked a D&D without energy drain. 

Of course, tastes vary, and to some people a D&D without energy drain (or a selection of elements, such as energy drain, Vancian magic and the Great Wheel) is not D&D at all. I honestly can't see that as anything other than personal bias, though. Sure, there is a point at which you can convince me that a game is no longer D&D, but I have yet to see an example given that isn't also an example of reductio ad absurdum.



> Against that, the evidence you offer that any new game from WotC must be called D&D is -- what? The evidence that WotC cannot offer more than one game is what? You just throw out these unsupported claims as if they were Newton's Laws.




For the "must be called D&D" thing -- well, I'd have to agree with your premise that 4e is not D&D in some fashion to offer an explanation, but I don't, sorry. I don't think that the elements it lacks or substitutes are prerequisites to anything with the D&D name on it. I got into D&D with the Erol Otus boxed set, and reconciling that both Basic and Advanced were D&D back when I was 11 kind of makes it easy for me to reconcile that Basic, Advanced, 3e and 4e are all D&D now. 

For the keeping multiple editions in print: it's less Newton's Laws and more like Distributor's Laws. Right about the time of Magic: the Gathering hitting, retailers and distributors started buying games as a whole in more of a periodical business model; this was greatly exacerbated by the d20 system. Lots of retailers simply weren't interested in reordering things, even if those things sold well: they wanted to put their dollars toward something new. Even if you don't believe in the possibility of competing with yourself by having two different products with the same label on the shelves at the same time, the growing popularity of the periodical business model for RPGs makes old editions a real drain on the finances. You still pay taxes on them, you still devote inventory space to them, but fewer stores want to reorder anything that isn't The New Thing, even if it's still in print. (That's mostly the hobby store side of things; the big book chains have their own set of problems associated with them.)

Keeping older editions in print is something I wish more of us publishers could do, but generally speaking you have to ask who's footing the bill. If the lines aren't selling enough on their own to do it (which is usually the defining factor in why you're doing a new edition in the first place), that money's got to come from somewhere.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 10, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> The best example of "not a storytelling game" I can give is when the ENW moderators were lucky enough to play with Gary Gygax at GenCon several years ago, delving into the first layer of the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk. Rel did a fascinating job of writing this up (and I'm still bitter that a gelatinous cube ate my mule!), but I was a little surprised that the game was nothing like my own DMing style. There was no plot at all, no theme to the monsters, and no attempt by Gary to steer us in any direction whatsoever. We chose where in the ruins to descend; we chose what doors to enter, and where we went. We surprised monsters or they surprised us, but even after going through several empty rooms in what I'd consider uncomfortable pacing, what we encountered was dictated solely by what was written on the map beforehand.
> 
> This was true to the extent that none of the rooms had any decor or furniture in them at all, and I mentioned it; Gary looked a little embarrassed and said that he had left the random dungeon trimming table at home.
> 
> We had a spectacular time, of course, and I'm going to remember that game for a long time. Seeing this emphasized to me that my own style tends more towards the plot-driven and cinematic than the old-school dungeon delves.




That's absolutely cool. It reminds me that the thing that I think I keep coming back to D&D for is the sense of exploration. There's really no other game out there that's quite as fine-tuned for that specific itch.

Of course, exploration means a lot of different things: what's behind the next door, what's over the next hill, what's the dark secret the mayor's hiding, why are those statues of frogs all around the village attracting more frogs? I think that's what keeps us all playing D&D regardless of edition or regardless of the spectrum that runs between Gary and your esteemed self. It's the spirit of exploration, and it works equally well with blank hex maps as it does with pacing and demented plots and lavish setting description. There's always something new to find. I love it.


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## Janx (Feb 10, 2010)

I like what madman just said:
"I reject the dichotomy of sandbox vs storytelling. I consider what I do to be 'story-creating'."

story-creating may be a better term.  I want what happens in game to feel like story driven by the players.  It's not so much telling, as it is creating.

On what PirateCat said about Gary's game:
I'm not a fan of dungeon crawls, I find them slow, tedious.  I especially don't like them for the sake of just doing a dungeon crawl.

That said, imagine that session being run by a less skillful DM than Gary.  I know I wouldn't enjoy it.

Now to get to something PC said:
"There was no plot at all, no theme to the monsters, and no attempt by Gary to steer us in any direction whatsoever. We chose where in the ruins to descend; we chose what doors to enter, and where we went. We surprised monsters or they surprised us, but even after going through several empty rooms in what I'd consider uncomfortable pacing, what we encountered was dictated solely by what was written on the map beforehand."

I assume this is "true sandbox" style.  I'm not knocking it.

I like me some plot.  I want to be going into the dungeon for a reason.  As a player, I don't want to blatantly be steered.  There's a middle ground.

As a DM, I write each adventure based on feedback and cues I get from the players after the last session.  I try to write up a "plot" that is based on either what the players said they are going to actively pursue next, or as a consequence of something they did in the past (and sometimes both).  

Technically, I'm taking a chance that they won't bite it, but it always works out, because the players know what I'm doing and why.  They trust me to deliver a fun challenge that their PCs would probably want to pursue.

I referred to this before, but I want my PCs to have a reason for doing things, beyond "killing things and taking their stuff".  I might refer to that as plot, implying a more complex background about their motivations for "killing things and taking their stuff".

I think the point of the "story-creating" DMs is that you can be flexible and you can make your game have good pacing, and have some dramatic moments, and have player freedom, and that when it is over, makes for a good story.

I'm not so sure that you'd get that from Gary's game, other than the fact that it was gaming with the inventor of D&D.  In the hands of a lesser DM, that style would not deliver what I'm looking for as a player.


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## Ariosto (Feb 10, 2010)

Where salt is rubbed, sometimes chips appear. And sometimes there's a dip. Or spicy chicken wings. Mmmm ... wings ....


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 10, 2010)

Thanks for the example of a great DM with a different style, Piratecat!

I think it's useful to say "let's look at the best possible examples of different GM approaches." As GMs one of the things we choose is who to model ourselves after; likewise as players it can be helpful to have an idealized image of your ideal GM as a yardstick for judging whether a given group will work for you. (We can also learn from terrible GMs - "gee, I sure don't want that!" - but that thread would be even more rancorous).

It's unavoidable to have some terminology drift. For example, it's interesting that people who identify themselves as storyteller GMs tend to be happy with newer editions of D&D, while those who prefer to let the players determine the story tend to prefer older ones. Avoiding any discussion of "old-school" would prevent analysis of this trend.

Instead of getting hung up on terms, though, I think it's helpful to try to figure out what people do and don't mean by things without making assumptions. Giving players choice is something that everyone in this thread puts a high value on: what are the different ways they achieve this? What are the implications of those different approaches?

For example, storytelling techniques certainly lend something to a game. It seems to me that every approach comes at a cost, though. The lean-forward GM increases excitement but sends the message that the story comes from him; the lean-back GM sends the message that the story is up to the players (but don't blame me if you get bored!). Even the GMs who know what approach they like can benefit from being aware of the costs associated with their style and learning what other GMs do to mitigate those costs.

Foreshadowing is a great dramatic device but implies that the story is known ahead of time; how do you reconcile this with player choice? 

To walk the talk, and pick up something that was said earlier about a GM's job being to create adversity for the players, here's how I'm approaching prep for a session of city adventuring this weekend.

Social environment: The group is big (8-10 players on average) and variable, so that I can't plan around any particular characters being in the mix (some folks are regulars, but I don't want to give them more mojo than first-time players whose PCs I haven't met yet). 

Expectations: There's a mandate for me to provide action; it's tempting to just say "here's a big city, go wherever you like" but I know from past experience that this won't work well with this group unless only <4 people show up. Some of what happens in the session needs to involve life-or-death crisis for all or most PCs at once.

Player choice: We use the New York Red Box forums and email to discuss what the plan for each sessions' adventure is before hand. Not everyone is active in that discussion, but the group feels it's a good compromise between letting the players choose their goals and not spending a lot of valuable in-person time talking it over, esp. since people who just show up are likely not to have a stake in what the party does as long as it's exciting.
    So, from that discussion, I know what the players want to do is to find a buyer for a scroll. And I know (spoiler for my players) it's got explosive runes that are likely to kill whoever they sell it to; I think that's too good a visual to let happen off-stage, so whoever buys it will want to try it out while the PCs are still there to witness it (or, from the NPC's POV, to be punished if they sold a fake) (/end spoiler).
    My first inclination is to have an NPC point them to just one buyer for the scroll, and prep in detail for an action sequence following up on the consequences of the sale. But it doesn't feel realistic for a city this big to have just one buyer, and it robs the possibility of the players shopping around and comparing offers.
    So my next inclination is to say "there are three buyers" but run the same prepped encounter wherever they go. This makes me feel guilty about illusionism, and prepping in detail for one situation will make more trouble if they do shop it around to all three. Inside I decide to set up a structure that I can apply to all three buyers - in each manse there are the personal allies of the buyer, who are loyal to him; a force of guards who just do what they're paid to; and a rival who would be glad to see the buyer removed from the scene. Having this structure lets me think about how the scene might play out in an exciting way, with lots of handles for the players to put on, but drop different specific individuals into the faction slots for each scene so that it'll play out differently depending on the players' choice.
     Now I have to prep for the possibility that either the players will do something entirely other than I expect, or somehow cause the scene at the scroll-buyers' not to create action (or at least not enough action to fill the session). So I create a tool-kit of adversaries I can drop in as wandering monsters, all of which are tailored to make trouble for a small street-gang of PCs at once. (More spoilers). One is a press gang authorized to force people to dig sewers; the PCs could bribe or fight. One is a racist rabble-rouser who hates elves. One is a religious cult who thinks yellow clothing is a sin, and then there's two groups of pickpockets, one that will escape by sewer, one by rooftop. (/end spoilers). Having these on hand lets me feel more secure in giving the players freedom to wander, because I have some ways to make trouble for them wherever they go. In theory these are random encounters - I'll let the dice determine when they happen, and which one comes along - but in practice I call for random checks as a way of controlling the pace of the group, and won't pull out these big set-piece encounters if there's already enough action on the boil.

To tie this back to GM techniques that happen at the table, rather than in the planning, I see rolling in the open for wandering monster checks as an important message. It demonstrates "I'm not fully in charge of what happens", and gives the players some game-level information of the kind howandwhy99 identifies as essential: "moving through the streets is dangerous, and we can gauge how much so by watching the dice and seeing what rolls create an encounter." 

Note that in the city, I expect to moderate that approach some in favor of story; here some of what a very acute player might learn by watching the frequency of my random encounter checks is "Tavis is bending the rules in order to create the kind of stuff he wants this session to include," which I don't do in a dungeon (where the dungeon design takes care of that for me at a different level). I think that's OK because some of the players do complain if the pacing lags or there's not enough action. If I were running for a different group (e.g., one that always had the same PCs present) I'd likely change parts of my approach to match.


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## Ariosto (Feb 10, 2010)

Barastrondo said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, Ariosto, but in regards to the original example of death being, or not being, a consequence because a character is so easily replaced, you really can't get the entire story from mechanics alone.



Yes. That is what "YMMV" as to the issue of identity meant! Apology accepted.

It is a bit confusing, though, that you seem to be arguing _my_ point, that death is not terribly hard to find in 4e, against yourself!

Next ... you offer something of which I cannot make head or tail. The argument for offering _both_ apples and oranges, or even oranges _billed as_ oranges (rather than as the kumquats that were discontinued for poor sales), is that one cannot otherwise profit from the trade. Now, if the trade in fact is not profitable, then _that_ would be the argument against supplying a demand.




> Out of curiosity, who's been claiming that the game itself was such a horrible imposition?



I cannot see what else to make of your drawing so much attention to the fact that old D&D happened to be, well, simply what it was. So are all other things. Yet, you seem to consider it somehow to have solved a big problem to change that one particular thing into this other particular thing -- which is just as different from just as many other things, as far as I can see!

You seem to make equations that just do not balance by any stretch unless there are some _really_ heavy hidden factors. If you have been assuming that I somehow know what those are, so that they _literally_ go without saying, then I must emphasize my ignorance.



> Sure, there is a point at which you can convince me that a game is no longer D&D



One naturally wonders where that might lie. One also hopes to be educated as to why your opinion on that point should be more important than that of the people to whom the referent is the game known by that name for 35+ years; or those to whom it is the game known by that name for a decade.



> For the keeping multiple editions in print: it's less Newton's Laws and more like Distributor's Laws.



Ah, yes. That is a very significant situation. I might not agree with some fine points, but at least there is a train of reasoning that I can follow.


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## Ariosto (Feb 10, 2010)

I seem to recall that Mr. Gygax's assessment of his own ability as a DM was one of unexceptional ability -- except in being able quickly to improvise details.

It seems to me that even a great DM who in fact did not deliver what I was looking for as a player would end up doing (or not doing) just that. It's a matter of what's delivered and what I'm looking for, if that makes any sense.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 10, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Next ... you offer something of which I cannot make head or tail. The argument for offering _both_ apples and oranges, or even oranges _billed as_ oranges (rather than as the kumquats that were discontinued for poor sales), is that one cannot otherwise profit from the trade. Now, if the trade in fact is not profitable, then _that_ would be the argument against supplying a demand.




Now I'm not sure if you're arguing my point for me or not.  A lot of it going around!



> I cannot see what else to make of your drawing so much attention to the fact that old D&D happened to be, well, simply what it was.




It was a construction of a great many parts, many of which were deemed undesirable to many players, and wound up being functionally unnecessary. Part of what made D&D what it was -- and still does -- was its flexibility in providing so many different takes on what "the D&D experience" is. Now we're to the point where certain takes can be distilled down and refined by edition. That's pretty neat. 



> So are all other things. Yet, you seem to consider it somehow to have solved a big problem to change that one particular thing into this other particular thing -- which is just as different from just as many other things, as far as I can see!




I'm pretty sure that's not what I'm claiming. I don't think that D&D has been changed into "this other particular thing." I think it's simply presented a new default configuration of its modular elements, and that configuration's also pretty worthy. To me, D&D is a term like "dog": _my_ dogs are mixed breeds, but Great Danes and Chihuahuas also qualify. 



> You seem to make equations that just do not balance by any stretch unless there are some _really_ heavy hidden factors. If you have been assuming that I somehow know what those are, so that they _literally_ go without saying, then I must emphasize my ignorance.




Liking or accepting editions is something that happens on a scale, and that disliking 10% of a game does not equate to 100% dislike of a game. If that equation doesn't balance for you, sorry, man.

I liked D&D back when it had level drain and racial level limits. I like it right now, when my favorite edition still has things I don't like, such as a unified magic item/gold economy. It was never a horrible imposition to play any edition, even when they contained things I did not care for, and yet I would prefer to play certain editions over others, now that I have those extra options. I don't know what else to say: the concept of hating D&D _itself_ because I didn't care for certain elements is just so bizarre. 



> One naturally wonders where that might lie. One also hopes to be educated as to why your opinion on that point should be more important than that of the people to whom the referent is the game known by that name for 35+ years; or those to whom it is the game known by that name for a decade.




I'm not saying that my opinion is any more important; I don't hold the license to D&D, and I'm not one of its original creators or anything. I'm simply saying there have been no proofs that any edition of D&D is "not D&D," only arguments that too many of any given observer's personal elements have been changed for that observer's tastes. As to however long the given observer has spent playing D&D, I have to confess it's pretty immaterial: an argument rooted in trying to prove hyperbole factual kind of has its own problems, no matter the geek credentials of its wielder.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 11, 2010)

I have spent a lot of time...perhaps too much time...figuring out what it means to be a "narrative GM."

I'm a fiction writer, and an actor, so I've picked up my share of books, classes, and techniques that advise writers on how to write, and actors on how to become a character. 

There's one comparison I find useful in this discussion more than any other.

_Independence Day_ vs. _Signs_.

Set aside how good or bad you think the movies are for a minute, and look at how they tell their stories. They're both about aliens coming to take over the planet, but _Independence Day_ is plot-driven, lean-forward DMing. Aliens come, do stuff, and the PC's...er...protagonists...need to stop 'em, or Everyone Will Die Forever. _Signs_ is character-driven, lean-back DMing. Aliens come to do stuff, but this is more about how individual PC's...er...characters...use the event in their own conflicts, than about the event itself. It doesn't demand an instant resolution.

_Independence Day_ says "Aliens are coming! React!" There's a clear BBEG. _Signs_ says "There's aliens out there. Tell me what you do." There's aliens, but Mel Gibson has more conflict within himself than with them. 

Every game is going to contain a mixture of these elements, over the course of many sessions, but each individual session probably falls into one camp or the other, and individual DM's probably come down more often on one side than the other. Gygax's style above is "There's a dungeon, do stuff," while Piratecat's main style sounds more "Here's a threat, react!" 

For me, I think about this through the lens of FFZ. To be true to the source material, FFZ has got to be strongly narrative. Heck, one of the big (and sometimes valid) criticisms of the FF games is that all you have to do is press a button to advance the plot. 

But the tabletop can't run on rails that rigid. Players at a table need to contribute something of their own to the game, because that is part of the inherent, psychological fun of an RPG: contributing to a shared reality. 

So FFZ has a powerful narrative element. Every year, you're expected to tell a story from beginning to end, with the GM and a handful of players both providing the thrust.

FFZ says "There is a villain. They are doing things that will eventually affect your character in some way. This is something you must react to. There are also other things out there -- other villains, threats, threads, and ideas -- that you may involve yourself with or not. If you do, the villain might relate to them. If not, they're still there, you're just not paying attention to them as a group." FFZ is mostly Independence Day with a sprinkling of Signs. 

FFZ has a _dramatic throughline_, which is basically this question: "Will the characters succeed at their goals, or fail?" Players choose the goals for the character, and then _conflict_, from the DM, stands in the way of these goals. The villain is made to be the source of the most dangerous of these conflicts (though probably not every conflict), and the DM uses the motives, desires, and personalities of the characters to nudge them into the conflict with the villain. The _game_, the random element, determines whether they succeed or fail in each challenge, and in the ultimate challenge.

Games that lack this explicit plot structure still have conflicts and characters and goals, but they are not codified, or defined. Every game has a three-act structure in some way, it maybe just is not called out explicitly as such (indeed, that structure is part of what, psychologically, makes games of all sorts so riveting -- games are drama, every game is a story, though not necessarily vice-versa). 

Games are inherently stories. A "storytelling GM" just calls this out explicitly, and tends to be more plot-focused. Stuff happens, characters react. A "sandbox GM" lets the stories evolve organically, and tends to be more character-focused. Character choice (player choice) drives the action more than anything else.

I don't think any GM can be a pure example of one or the other without the game being kind of ruined for it. If my characters can do anything, but nothing is happening around them, that's dull. If my character needs to react to things that are happening, but their reaction doesn't accomplish anything the GM couldn't have just done on her own, that's frustrating.


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## SteveC (Feb 11, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> The best example of "not a storytelling game" I can give is when the ENW moderators were lucky enough to play with Gary Gygax at GenCon several years ago, delving into the first layer of the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk. Rel did a fascinating job of writing this up (and I'm still bitter that a gelatinous cube ate my mule!), but I was a little surprised that the game was nothing like my own DMing style. There was no plot at all, no theme to the monsters, and no attempt by Gary to steer us in any direction whatsoever. We chose where in the ruins to descend; we chose what doors to enter, and where we went. We surprised monsters or they surprised us, but even after going through several empty rooms in what I'd consider uncomfortable pacing, what we encountered was dictated solely by what was written on the map beforehand.
> 
> This was true to the extent that none of the rooms had any decor or furniture in them at all, and I mentioned it; Gary looked a little embarrassed and said that he had left the random dungeon trimming table at home.
> 
> We had a spectacular time, of course, and I'm going to remember that game for a long time. Seeing this emphasized to me that my own style tends more towards the plot-driven and cinematic than the old-school dungeon delves.



I think that somehow this has been lost in the discussion, and it's the central distinction to the storytelling versus sandbox distinction. I was lucky enough to play a game with Gary many years ago (I was, if I remember correctly, 9 at the time!) and the game was entirely what we made of it. Gary presented a level in Greyhawk that the group was exploring and we were left to do precisely what we wanted. He listened to everyone's ideas and dealt with the repercussions impartially. I really had a fantastic time at that game (in large part because Gary listened to what I wanted to do and treated me like an adult, which to someone my age was a _huge_ complement.

Since then, however, I've learned to enjoy the storytelling games much more, largely because I've played sandbox games to death. I really have, to the point of where the thought of a dungeon crawl without an extremely good reason bores me to tears.

A good storytelling GM gives me the idea that there's something going on that's larger than what I and the rest of my group are concerned with. As much as some would say "the story you create as a group will be much more interesting than anything one GM can come up with," I've found that not to be ultimately true (at least for me, anymore). If you take a look at War of the Burning Sky, for example, it's designed to be much more of a storytelling game than a sandbox, and the group's I've run it for appreciate this very much.

The same game run just as a sandbox would not have the strong themes that resonate throughout the entire campaign, because the players would likely never come across them.

Obviously this is just my opinion, and all that it implies...

--Steve


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## LostSoul (Feb 11, 2010)

The idea that a "sandbox" and a good story are opposed to each other is, perhaps, a fallacy.

The link in my sig - the Burning Empires game - is an example of me learning to run games in a "sandbox" mode.  The story (and I think it was a decent story, sometimes, though lacking a satisfying conclusion) was about PCs and their agendas conflicting with NPCs and their agendas.

All one needs to _create_ a good story is characters who want something and characters who will resist that.  From the interplay between characters, goals may shift and there is an understanding of what the players think about human nature.

However - I don't think that the DM can _tell_ a story and still have the players _create_ protagonists for that story.


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

Barastrondo said:
			
		

> there have been no proofs that any edition of D&D is "not D&D,"



Nor are there likely to be, unless you advertise your criteria! How and why you expect anyone otherwise to take an interest and _try_ in the first place is baffling. 

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. The 4e DMG2 opens with a discussion of "Group Storytelling". I can't say much more about it, having only glanced at the thing, but perhaps someone else can.

Kamikaze Midget, I can dig the analogy -- but, in actuality, both of those productions were _movies_, not _games_. I can pick up a Super Nintendo Entertainment System and find an awful lot of things that are "sort of both", perhaps even unto being "not quite either".

I don't know to what extent that fashion has continued in modern console video games. At one time, it seemed to be pretty much what "RPG" meant (quite independently) in the context of Japanese digital media (as opposed to American paper-and-pencil).

I remember the "Dragon's Lair" arcade game, one of the early laser-disc units, from the summer of '83. The milieu of other media and their relationship with D&D and its ilk was rather different then.

Another medium with some popularity in the 1980s-90s was the "pick your path" adventure book. Those told stories with some variations; at intervals along the way, the reader/player made a choice among (usually two or three) alternative chapters.

That tended to produce a much more limited range of possibilities, in a given page count, than solitaire scenarios for normal RPGs such as Tunnels & Trolls or The Fantasy Trip. The distance between decision points in "pick your path" was longer, and filled with narration more than with information upon which one could act.

The Lone Wolf series was a successful hybrid of the forms. However, electronic computers able to run programs of greater complexity became ever more widely available. That eventually so overshadowed lack of easy portability relative to a paperback book that the computer games took over the niche.

All those were, as I recall, generally regarded in the paper-and-pencil RPG scene at first as either poor substitutes or -- increasingly, as program form adapted to new hardware capabilities -- as a distinctly different pastime with its own separate excellences.

I wonder whether now the computer game has in some quarters ascended to the position of priority, so that it sets expectations of human-moderated RPGs. I notice the greater importance of "action" game forms (such as the once-preponderant "platform game"), and lesser emphasis on "strategic" games, than back in the days when _board games_ were the most prominent other entries in D&Ders' ludographies.


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## The Shaman (Feb 11, 2010)

SteveC said:


> A good storytelling GM gives me the idea that there's something going on that's larger than what I and the rest of my group are concerned with.



In my experience a good sandbox referee does the same thing.

For me the real difference is, who comes up with the 'plot' (by which I mean the sequence of events that play out over the course of the game)? Does the referee develop a sequence of events that adventurers are expected to follow (and no, I don't think this is inherently demands railroading or strong coercion of the adventurers to achieve), or does it arise as a consequence of the players' choices for their characters as a response to those larger somethings-going-on?

The setting I'm working on is rife with conflicts, from the machinations of powerful nations to the intrigues of courtiers and criminals and cavaliers, pretenders and prelates and pirates. Yet I have no particular plot for the adventurers to follow, only a world where lots of stuff is going on at many different scales, stuff which the player characters may attempt to influence or may, as a consequence of the players' decisions, sweep up the adventurers in turn.







SteveC said:


> The same game run just as a sandbox would not have the strong themes that resonate throughout the entire campaign, because the players would likely never come across them.



I'm not familiar with _. . . Burning Sky_. Could you give an example of what you mean by a "strong theme?"


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## The Shaman (Feb 11, 2010)

LostSoul said:


> The idea that a "sandbox" and a good story are opposed to each other is, perhaps, a fallacy.
> 
> All one needs to _create_ a good story is characters who want something and characters who will resist that.



"You must spread some Experience Points around before giving to *LostSoul *again."


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Games are inherently stories.



That line demonstrates a really, really big gulf in basic premise between generations/ subcultures/ whatever.

Ignorance is bliss. If one has never played Chinese Checkers, Contract Bridge, Cosmic Encounter, Diplomacy, Junta, Rail Baron, Victory in the Pacific, etc., then the gulf may not be apparent.

Bring this "tell me a story" expectation to pretty much any old game _other than_ "let's tell a story", though, and -- no surprise to a lot of old gamers -- one is in for disappointment.

Oh, well. I guess it's just a matter of time before a "storytelling game" is billed as the new and improved Chess. "But _of course_ White always beats Black; that's the _story!_"


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

> The idea that a "sandbox" and a good story are opposed to each other is, perhaps, a fallacy.



Depending on what you mean by 'sandbox', that is *precisely* what the "Gospel of Papers&Paychecks" says -- only without the waffling 'perhaps'.

The whole thrust of this thread, though, has been to assert just the opposite -- through the roundabout method of pretending that P&P 'really' meant any number of completely different things.


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## Starfox (Feb 11, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Ignorance is bliss. If one has never played Chinese Checkers, Contract Bridge, Cosmic Encounter, Diplomacy, Junta, Rail Baron, Victory in the Pacific, etc., then the gulf may not be apparent.




Just to show how muddled the terms are:
Cosmic Encounter is the story of the fight for interstellar domination.
Diplomacy is the story of an alternate-history WW1.
Diplomacy is the sad story of corruption and deceit in a banana republic.
Etc...

What I'm trying to say is not that these games are storytelling games, only that the concept "storytelling game" is so muddled that each of us can mean a different thing when we speak about it. And I think much of the conflict comes from this. 



Ariosto said:


> Oh, well. I guess it's just a matter of time before a "storytelling game" is billed as the new and improved Chess. "But of course White always beats Black; that's the story!"




If white always has to beat black for a game to be a storytelling game, then I am not a storytelling GM. To me, being a storytelling GM means I tell a dramatic story, not that every twist and turn is predetermined. It IS predetermined that there will be a grand conflict at the end, but not how it goes or even what kind of conflict it will be.


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

> Just to show how muddled the terms are:



Well, of course they are as muddled as you decide to make them! It is generally very easy to wreck things, relative to constructive works. There is obviously no way for anyone to engage with you in a conversation to which you refuse to be a party.

However, that refusal to understand (or at least to acknowledge understanding of) a message is not the same as an absence of message. Neither does a refusal to make an effort to communicate clearly 'prove' that the attempt, if in fact made, would be futile.

There is meaning in what P&P wrote, meaning upon -- and with! -- which many other people agree.

You can disagree. However, that calls for something other than a determined effort not even to understand the proposition in the first place. To 'disagree' without knowing what it is with which one is disagreeing is really just _disagreeable_ balderdash.



> It IS predetermined that there will be a grand conflict at the end, but not how it goes or even what kind of conflict it will be.



You are drawing a fine point, methinks, for "pre-" is "pre-" regardless of degree! I can premeditate for months, or act on a moment's impulse, but in either case if I push you off a ledge then it is _my_ choice that you should fall.


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## Starfox (Feb 11, 2010)

My point is that I'd rather debate for a playstyle than defend a term. I consider myself a storytelling GM, but if Storytelling = Railroading then I am not a storyteller. That is why it can be more constructive to try and define the terms than to fight over which one of them is "best". 

I guess i could come up with a definition of sandbox that is so unfun that no-one would want to associate with it, but what would be the point? It would be a definition from the outside, a wall built to keep sandboxing out. I'd rather that sandbox players themselves defined what their playstyle entails. The same goes for storytellers - as a storyteller I resent when my playstyle is defined in a way I don't want to associate with.  

If you define sandboxing and I define storytelling as a list of elements that make up each subgenre, It is more than likely that my storytelling and your sandboxing has many elements in common.


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

> I guess i could come up with a definition of sandbox that is so unfun that no-one would want to associate with it, but what would be the point?



As those who routinely do just that (such as a certain Messrs. J. and H.) are quite aware, it is a great rhetorical trick. As we have seen here, it can be quite successful in turning real people and real persuasions effectively into "straw men" to throw down and stomp upon at least in figurative terms.

After enough of that, some -- such as myself -- weary of it enough to _stop using_ what was once an effective tool of language. Deprived of means with which to express thoughts, conversation gets constrained. Deprived of that commerce in ideas, thought itself gets constrained.

Fortunately, I can press into service other terms than 'sandbox' -- but it is a matter of building a new dike before a new flood of determined obscurantism tears it down and drowns potentially productive conversation yet again in mud.


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## S'mon (Feb 11, 2010)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> _Independence Day_ vs. _Signs_.
> 
> Set aside how good or bad you think the movies are for a minute, and look at how they tell their stories. They're both about aliens coming to take over the planet, but _Independence Day_ is plot-driven, lean-forward DMing. Aliens come, do stuff, and the PC's...er...protagonists...need to stop 'em, or Everyone Will Die Forever. _Signs_ is character-driven, lean-back DMing. Aliens come to do stuff, but this is more about how individual PC's...er...characters...use the event in their own conflicts, than about the event itself. It doesn't demand an instant resolution.
> 
> _Independence Day_ says "Aliens are coming! React!" There's a clear BBEG. _Signs_ says "There's aliens out there. Tell me what you do." There's aliens, but Mel Gibson has more conflict within himself than with them.




Many thanks for this!  Your comparison gives me a lot to chew on re the direction of my own campaign.  I think I GM Signs a lot better than I GM Independence Day, and your analogy is giving me thoughts about how I can turn a plot-heavy linear approach into something more Sign-ish.  It helps that I was thinking about an invasion plot anyway...


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## Barastrondo (Feb 11, 2010)

The Shaman said:


> In my experience a good sandbox referee does the same thing.
> 
> For me the real difference is, who comes up with the 'plot' (by which I mean the sequence of events that play out over the course of the game)? Does the referee develop a sequence of events that adventurers are expected to follow (and no, I don't think this is inherently demands railroading or strong coercion of the adventurers to achieve), or does it arise as a consequence of the players' choices for their characters as a response to those larger somethings-going-on?




Little of both, sometimes. I tend to start some plots running, and see which ones the players are likely to meddle in. If they ignore a given plot, it will probably affect things later on. However, I'm careful not to have a plot that nobody's interested in turn out to mean Very Bad Things if they ignore them. In my experience, players don't particularly enjoy being punished for pursuing the plots they're more interested in by having to go back to the plots they're not, now with higher stakes. So to some extent there's story guidance rather than strong simulation, because I do want the players to pick the style of adversity they enjoy most, and scale that up accordingly.

(I am also not above the old trick of, when the players become excited about a plotline and visualize it as more far-reaching and dangerous than I had originally planned, quietly stepping it up to meet their expectations. Villains modify their plans as the players get involved, or maybe their ambitions were cleverly hid even from me! Sometimes a mountain can turn out to be a molehill, but I also think it's best to avoid players ending up disappointed that something is less exciting than they'd hoped.) 



> The setting I'm working on is rife with conflicts, from the machinations of powerful nations to the intrigues of courtiers and criminals and cavaliers, pretenders and prelates and pirates. Yet I have no particular plot for the adventurers to follow, only a world where lots of stuff is going on at many different scales, stuff which the player characters may attempt to influence or may, as a consequence of the players' decisions, sweep up the adventurers in turn.




Very neat work! How would you frame an opening play session in this setting? I'm curious about the ideal new player experience you'd have in mind. (In an entirely positive way, mind; don't let the featureless tone of text misconstrue this question as some sort of challenge.)


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 11, 2010)

Ariosto said:
			
		

> Bring this "tell me a story" expectation to pretty much any old game other than "let's tell a story", though, and -- no surprise to a lot of old gamers -- one is in for disappointment.
> 
> Oh, well. I guess it's just a matter of time before a "storytelling game" is billed as the new and improved Chess. "But of course White always beats Black; that's the story!"




Well, the maxim was "all games are stories," not "tell me a story." 

The games = stories thing is just down to the definition. Games resolve conflict. Stories also resolve conflict. The difference lies mostly in that games are meant to involve the audience and risk failure, while stories are meant to be passive, told things, where the only risk is the sympathy you feel for the characters. D&D games are stories, too, just like a football game, a game of monopoly, or a game of poker. It's just a matter of what drives the action.

And that doesn't have much to do with success or failure. Stories have the White failing pretty requently, and, in order to be a game, you need to have that chance for failure (FFZ actually does its best to risk TPK in every encounter, and explicitly recommends meaningful failure as an option in every encounter). 

The difference is mostly between character-focused action, and plot-focused action. In one, the conflict comes to get ya, in the other, the characters choose to go to the conflict (or not, dealing with other conflicts). 



			
				S'mon said:
			
		

> Many thanks for this! Your comparison gives me a lot to chew on re the direction of my own campaign. I think I GM Signs a lot better than I GM Independence Day, and your analogy is giving me thoughts about how I can turn a plot-heavy linear approach into something more Sign-ish. It helps that I was thinking about an invasion plot anyway...



 Glad ya like it! Seriously, next time you're in a big-box book retailer, check out their writing sections (usually next to the test prep, past the sciences). There's a lot of good DMing advice encapsulated already in writing advice, and a lot of the more recent books even give nods to "interactive fiction" and the like, given the rise of videogames in the last decade or so. 

I'm more of an Independence Day kind of GM, so I try harder to sit back and let my players take over, without bombarding them with some sort of Michael Bay explosion or something.


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## Starfox (Feb 11, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> Little of both, sometimes. I tend to start some plots running, and see which ones the players are likely to meddle in. If they ignore a given plot, it will probably affect things later on. However, I'm careful not to have a plot that nobody's interested in turn out to mean Very Bad Things if they ignore them.




This seems a good middle road for me, even if it is in some ways a "faux sandbox". It gives the players the illusion of the freedom of the sandbox, and "rewards" them by having them pick up the plotlines that turned out to be the major themes of the campaign. It is still a lot of work, tough, as you must present all the paths not taken. 

I must admit part of the reason I don't like sandbox play is that I'm lazy. It is much easier for me to prepare one plotline with occasional player-driven excursions than to make a world full of plots, only a few of which will ever come into play. But this is not all - thinking up a plot hook and then not use it is hard for me. Let me give an example:

In my Savage Tide game, I very much enjoyed the first chapters, in Sasserine. I looked up possible scenarios I could use for the setting and inserted those (about half the stuff we do in my Savage Tide campaign is not actually Savage Tide). But I ended up with so much surplus material that it turned into a separate "Sasserine" campaign where the players were police. I think the same could happen if I tried to make a sandbox full of plot hooks - I would become so interested in some of the unrealized hooks that I'd want to make separate campaigns about them.


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## KidSnide (Feb 11, 2010)

LostSoul said:


> The idea that a "sandbox" and a good story are opposed to each other is, perhaps, a fallacy.




I think most people would agree that a good story can come from a sandbox.  (Certainly, the Gygas/ENworld mods game is a great story, at least from a certain perspective.)  However, people who like the storytelling style think that its techniques lead to _stronger_ stories (admittedly, at the cost of some PC autonomy), because GM intervention can help with pacing, consistency, theme, and - most simply - just finding the best bits to play with.

Although a "sandbox" game definitely isn't opposed to a good story, a sandbox GM does forgo a collection of tools that help produce good stories.  And therefore, it's reasonable to put "sandbox" and "storytelling" on a continuum.  A sandbox style game grants more PC autonomy and freedom to explore what the PCs want, while a storytelling style game provides more GM guidance, along with the beneficial direction, pacing and narrative tricks that can go along with it. 



LostSoul said:


> However - I don't think that the DM can _tell_ a story and still have the players _create_ protagonists for that story.




Terminology confusion aside, I don't think many storytelling GMs think of themselves as "telling a story" themselves, so much as they are telling a story together with the players.  A story telling game that does't provide any opportunity for the players to participate in the story telling sounds like a strangely degenerate version of the style. 

-KS


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## Scribble (Feb 11, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> That line demonstrates a really, really big gulf in basic premise between generations/ subcultures/ whatever.
> 
> Ignorance is bliss. If one has never played Chinese Checkers, Contract Bridge, Cosmic Encounter, Diplomacy, Junta, Rail Baron, Victory in the Pacific, etc., then the gulf may not be apparent.




Story revolves around conflict, so anytime you encounter conflict you find the basic ingredients for a story.

To say _any game is story_ is really no different then when they say the "epic tale of men on the battlefield of the NFL," or something.


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## Starfox (Feb 11, 2010)

In my mind, it is all a matter of degrees. I don't see a line in the sandbox that prevents me from telling a story in it. Yet there might be some ways of looking at a sandbox that prevents me from doing so.  


One definition of sandbox could be that it is the players that tell the story, not the GM.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 11, 2010)

Starfox said:


> This seems a good middle road for me, even if it is in some ways a "faux sandbox". It gives the players the illusion of the freedom of the sandbox, and "rewards" them by having them pick up the plotlines that turned out to be the major themes of the campaign. It is still a lot of work, tough, as you must present all the paths not taken.




To be wholly honest, opening-game play and mid-game play are a little different. I usually start players off with a fairly direct hook to their first adventure -- bandits have stolen the corpse of a party member's mentor, the Library basements are flooding for some unknown reason, the jarl's bride-to-be was murdered en route to her wedding, etc. Along the path to that story, I take note of what details they're asking about (the dwarf hold down the road, the tunnels in the Outer Wall, the movements of mercenary companies) and start fleshing out specific plots from there. Usually I've been scribbling in a notebook about potential villains and plots for a few weeks prior, and I will start drawing from there as appropriate. 



> I must admit part of the reason I don't like sandbox play is that I'm lazy. It is much easier for me to prepare one plotline with occasional player-driven excursions than to make a world full of plots, only a few of which will ever come into play.




I'm lazy too! (Plus I run multiple games, so it's good to keep things simple.) I do a lot of my planning session by session, though; I might have an idea in my head for an interesting climactic story to an overall arc, but each stage tends to get fleshed out just as I need to. 



> But this is not all - thinking up a plot hook and then not use it is hard for me. Let me give an example:
> 
> In my Savage Tide game, I very much enjoyed the first chapters, in Sasserine. I looked up possible scenarios I could use for the setting and inserted those (about half the stuff we do in my Savage Tide campaign is not actually Savage Tide). But I ended up with so much surplus material that it turned into a separate "Sasserine" campaign where the players were police. I think the same could happen if I tried to make a sandbox full of plot hooks - I would become so interested in some of the unrealized hooks that I'd want to make separate campaigns about them.




Heh heh heh. I understand completely. I have about thirty unused campaign ideas at the moment, stuff that's boiled out from random brainstorming. The nice thing, though, is that campaign or even just plot ideas don't go bad; some age a little poorly as campaigns evolve, but others become more refined as you add other ideas along the way. I've come up with some campaign ideas about a decade before I actually ran them. So I just file them away for later, and if an idea for a corsair game winds up being a good side plot for a different coastal game later on, that's good stuff.


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## KidSnide (Feb 11, 2010)

Starfox said:


> One definition of sandbox could be that it is the players that tell the story, not the GM.




In a sandbox game, the players tell the story using the GM's world as a medium.

In a story telling game, the GM and players tell the story together.

-KS


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

Thanks, Scribble. I really needed that lecture on how utterly banal and useless the "any game is story" remark was. Because I really was so foolish as to give it the benefit of the doubt.

*Admin here. I cautioned you earlier: you're being dismissive and rude. It's totally fine to disagree with someone, it's not okay to come across as a sarcastic jerk when you're doing so. Please stop. ~ PCat*


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## Barastrondo (Feb 11, 2010)

KidSnide said:


> In a sandbox game, the players tell the story using the GM's world as a medium.
> 
> In a story telling game, the GM and players tell the story together.




And perhaps to complicate matters (sorry!), in a story telling game both parties use more of the techniques and skills that a more traditional storyteller would use. There's more of a sense for pushing for dramatic beats like "an exciting way to finish off the evening's session," or thinking about techniques like playing through a flashback sequence or having dramatic reveals or twists.


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## Scribble (Feb 11, 2010)

_Removed by admin; already addressed.  ~ PCat_


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

*Why Dice?*

I am well satisfied as to the use of probabilistic factors in ordinary games.

Their utility in _storytelling exercises_, however, seems a bit less straightforward.

Certainly every objection raised against an environment through which players are free to wander unscripted applies at least as much to events dictated by chance?


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 11, 2010)

Starfox said:


> In my Savage Tide game, I very much enjoyed the first chapters, in Sasserine... But I ended up with so much surplus material that it turned into a separate "Sasserine" campaign where the players were police.




I had the same experience (although in our Sasserine campaign the players were thieves)!

Savage Tide was the campaign I ran immediately before starting my current sandbox game. Part of my wanting to go in that direction was having felt like players got the most enjoyment out of the Sasserine beginning of the campaign, where their own directions could flower in an open-ended environment. The later sections were less celebrated by this group despite the exotic locales the adventure path took them to, and the dramatic techniques like foreshadowing and closure that I could employ because I knew where the path led. For my part, I found it to be a lot of work to figure out that destination ahead of time, work in ways to place leads in that direction, and worry about the players getting off-track - especially since this work was in addition to (and sometimes in conflict with) the everyday effort of reacting to the things the players wanted to do.

Planning for the Sasserine side campaign was easier for me because it was just-in-time. There were lots of player goals that adventures would form around, and a place-centered way for consequences from previous actions to come back and create conflict and complications; as players progressed towards their goals, and the effects of previous actions piled up, the game would take on a direction of its own without me as GM needing to stress about it.

So yeah, I think important factors here are "which kinds of work does the GM find easy, and which are difficult/stressful for them" and "how much do the players value freedom vs. the guarantee of dramatic closure".


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## Barastrondo (Feb 11, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> *Why Dice?*
> 
> I am well satisfied as to the use of probabilistic factors in ordinary games.
> 
> ...




Well, I can't speak to the platonic ideal of the storytelling exercise, since I've never really spent time with them, but in a game with strong storytelling influence, dice are great much of the time and not all of the time. Same thing for player freedom to wander: it's great when it provides ideas, and then maybe you throw in some nudges toward a plot hook if the players are spinning their wheels and not really going anywhere. (Or ninjas attack.) Dice are one tool among many, and they work fine. 

Unless it's a diceless system like Amber, you don't want to avoid dice. What you want to avoid is a mentality where the dice can do no wrong, and therefore calling for a roll is always the best way to handle things. It doesn't quite work out like that. Consider the plot hook that can be found only by a successful Gather Information/Streetwise roll, and failure on said roll doesn't give you a different plot hook, but rather tells you "nothing interesting happens, and you should succeed at a different die roll in order to find something interesting to do." Combat and negotiations, on the other hand, are fine places where failure on a roll can build tension. Missing an attack means that the enemy now has another shot at you. However, playing out a one-sided combat probably doesn't need dice; if failure just prolongs the experience without adding tension, that's undesirable. 

All things in moderation, really. Most games with a strong storytelling bent run like that.


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## Piratecat (Feb 11, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> *Why Dice?*
> 
> I am well satisfied as to the use of probabilistic factors in ordinary games.
> 
> ...



Gosh, I don't think so. This has a lot to do with the thrill of exploring the unknown. The randomness and uncertainty of dice turn the experience from collaborative storytelling into an experience where no one, neither the DM nor the players, know how a session will play out. It effectively adds a neutral third party to help arbitrate the action.

And yet, I don't want to delegate all of my DMing to the dice; I don't want to slavishly roll for wandering monsters or random treasure when I know the game will be more fun if I don't. In comparison, I won't tweak attack rolls in combat. Understanding where that line is for you helps indicate where you fall on the sandbox <--> storytelling side of the equation.


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

An aside: There is a sort of impersonal detachment in a "pick your path" book or a computer program. I mean that the "Game Master" is not present; there is no way to interact with the judge, to appeal or even object to a ruling. Everything is unchangeably set before ever one encounters the scenario; if the designer did not think of some possibility, then it is effectively impossible. Once upon a time, that was widely regarded as a shortcoming relative to human moderation. By more "modern" values, the opposite might be the case.


But back to dice. One thing I think needs more attention if one is bent on having a plot line is the _range of results_. Having a very, very small chance of, say, Our Hero getting killed in an early scene may be better _in theory_ than a merely small chance -- but _in the event_, the outcome is just the same!

When we define The Story, obviously we are also defining Not The Story; the former is actually a very small subset of possibilities relative to the latter. Making characters more likely than not to get killed when first hit, and about as likely as not to get hit in the first fight -- as in the original D&D game -- follows from the premise that "the story" (as whatever happens to happen) could well be, "... and then the Mewlips ate him up."

Addressing that one way or another is a first order of business, I think. Even D&D4e leaves "random" outliers in the spread, that might not be part of The Story.


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## Piratecat (Feb 11, 2010)

One thing I want to mention is that when I run a game, I don't have "The Story." I have a whole lot of potential "Stories", none necessarily better than the next, that unfold depending on what the PCs do and how the dice fall. As random events occur - a PC dies, that NPC you love gets killed early - certain possible paths get closed down and new ones open up. What I love about DMing is getting to figure those out on the fly and determine which ones might result in the most fun for the players.


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## KidSnide (Feb 11, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> Ariosto said:
> 
> 
> > *Why Dice?*
> ...




Dice are most useful when you want tension and uncertainty, or when the resolution of an action doesn't matter to the story.  

Remember that a story telling game is still a *game* (not just "a story telling exercise").  A GM may decide that certain obstacles (e.g. "can the PCs discover the plot?") shouldn't be left to chance.  But other challenges (e.g. "are the PCs able to defeat the BBG?") are more fun when there is a meaningful possibility for failure.  That's when dice (and, incidentally, 4e's excellent tactical sub game) are useful.  Those elements allow the PCs to make meaningful decisions with meaningful consequences that help determine who wins and what level of risk the players are willing to put their characters.

-KS


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

Oh, yes -- _Replay_ is a usual assumption with what I'll call "set" scenarios (Pick Your Path and computer games). I have heard of people going through the same RPGA scenario several times with different characters. Also, the old dungeon and wilderness model -- a navigable and dynamic _spatial environment_ rather than a limited set of events -- was set up for players to explore by multiple paths.

In that case, it becomes possible to _experience_ a range of probabilities and outcomes, more than one of the stories that are possible variations on The Story.

Whether that is to be (at least in the short term) the mode of consumption, or whether it is effectively "read once", may make a significant difference in the effects of various techniques.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 11, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> When we define The Story, obviously we are also defining Not The Story; the former is actually a very small subset of possibilities relative to the latter. Making characters more likely than not to get killed when first hit, and about as likely as not to get hit in the first fight -- as in the original D&D game -- follows from the premise that "the story" (as whatever happens to happen) could well be, "... and then the Mewlips ate him up."
> 
> Addressing that one way or another is a first order of business, I think. Even D&D4e leaves "random" outliers in the spread, that might not be part of The Story.




That's why The Story is defined as we go instead of ahead of time. If the hero dies, even if the odds are against it, then clearly that's part of the story. At that point you move into potential contingency plans like "so hey, is there some way to raise the dead?", or a shift in protagonist. I know that if I'm mucking around with D&D with a storytelling technique in mind, the default assumption regarding raising the dead is (a) it shouldn't be done all the time, and (b) it should be an interesting process. Find a gate to the Underworld. Duel a Valkyrie for the right to keep your lover among the living. So therefore, having death as a potential option doesn't hurt "The Story" as it evolves. There are many satisfactory ways to build an interesting new chapter out of an unexpected death. 

That said, setting the odds of death to "low" is a popular option because it keeps character death high-impact. In a game where you lose 1-4 PCs every couple of weeks, or more often than that, you run a risk of each PC's death being more of an anecdote than a story. Not that there's anything wrong with anecdotes -- they're a lot easier to recount at cons, and there's less of a "you had to be there" limiter. But if a character's death has a real story impact, then that's quite valuable for everyone at the table.


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## KidSnide (Feb 11, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> One thing I want to mention is that when I run a game, I don't have "The Story." I have a whole lot of potential "Stories", none necessarily better than the next, that unfold depending on what the PCs do and how the dice fall. As random events occur - a PC dies, that NPC you love gets killed early - certain possible paths get closed down and new ones open up. What I love about DMing is getting to figure those out on the fly and determine which ones might result in the most fun for the players.




Yes.  This is why a story telling GM does not "tell the story".  In a story telling game, the players and GM tell the story together (sometimes with help from the dice).  As a GM, adjusting your plans and expectations on the fly is part of the fun.

-KS


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

> Yes.  This is why a story telling GM does not "tell the story".



My, but that looks rather like


			
				Papers&Paychecks said:
			
		

> The role of a superior DM is NOT to tell a story to his or her players.


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## Scribble (Feb 11, 2010)

so then what's the issue?


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## KidSnide (Feb 11, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> KidSnide said:
> 
> 
> > Yes.  This is why a story telling GM does not "tell the story".  In a story telling game, the players and GM tell the story together (sometimes with help from the dice).  As a GM, adjusting your plans and expectations on the fly is part of the fun.
> ...




Well, I can't speak specifically to Papers & Paychecks (other than as a reference to a comic in the 1e DMG), but -- yes -- a good story telling game incorporates many of the same elements that you find in a good "sandbox" game.  In either style, the game is interactive.  And also, in either style, the *players* participate in creating the story.

The difference is that, in a story telling game, the GM guides and participates in telling the story.  In a strict sandbox game, the GM is purely a neutral arbiter.  The sandbox GM's contribution to the story is to create collection of scenarios with which the PCs interact.

That's why the same statement ("The role of a superior DM is NOT to tell a story to his or her players.") can mean different things in different contexts.  In a story telling context, it is a reminder that the GM has to allow the PCs to participate and that interactivity is a central part of the game.  In a strict sandbox context, it is a admonishment to GMs, telling them to create scenarios, and not to get involved in how the PCs interact with them.

-KS

Edit: tone


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

KidSnide said:
			
		

> The difference is that, in a story telling game, the GM guides and participates in telling the story.



How does the GM guide and participate?

How does the path of "the story" onto which events are to be guided get distinguished from what is not "the story"?

How is this reconciled with the distinction of the role of GM, the asymmetry of participant powers?

How do the 'players' remain _players of a game_ as opposed to theatrical performers?


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## Ariosto (Feb 11, 2010)

Oh, yes: What makes _Dungeons & Dragons_ a tool of choice for such an undertaking?

This is especially puzzling to me when I contemplate the tremendous amount of time, energy and expense devoted to overturning one thing after another and transforming what Arneson and Gygax designed into something better fitted (by how much even yet?) as a means to the end.

In the meantime, countless other works have been produced free of the "sacred cows" and legacy; free to be uncompromisingly designed for the "storytelling" game.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 11, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> How does the GM guide and participate?




Pretty much like in most other styles of roleplaying game, only with storytelling techniques added to the arsenal. You describe scenes, or offer to let the players describe scenes, you answer questions, you play the part of characters, you determine how the world would react to the actions of the players. You just tend to keep into mind things like tension, pacing, and player interest. So a decision to have an old enemy attack now rather than next session might be driven by the desire to get the action flowing rather than a predetermined timeline or random table. 



> How does the path of "the story" onto which events are to be guided get distinguished from what is not "the story"?




Remember, "the story" is not a predetermined outcome. It's something that is built in play. Guiding elements of the story involves the aforementioned nudging of elements into more dramatically satisfying configurations, but it's not anything like trying to build or adhere to a script.



> How is this reconciled with the distinction of the role of GM, the asymmetry of participant powers?




Play with a GM you trust, basically. Since things are often ad-libbed, there is no player ability to audit the books. 



> How do the 'players' remain _players of a game_ as opposed to theatrical performers?




There's actually very little risk of the players, no quotes necessary, transforming into 'theatrical performers', quotes probably necessary. Unless you let people who don't know much about said games be the ones to determine where the 'theatrical performers' line is drawn, but I don't really subscribe to that theory. It's sort of like letting people who don't know much about RPGs as a whole determine where the 'stupid waste of time' line is drawn.



> Oh, yes: What makes Dungeons & Dragons a tool of choice for such an undertaking?




The group's desire to play Dungeons & Dragons. 



> This is especially puzzling to me when I contemplate the tremendous amount of time, energy and expense devoted to overturning one thing after another and transforming what Arneson and Gygax designed into something better fitted (by how much even yet?) as a means to the end.
> 
> In the meantime, countless other works have been produced free of the "sacred cows" and legacy; free to be uncompromisingly designed for the "storytelling" game.




It hies back to people not playing D&D the same way. There's no real guarantee that anyone will have learned to play D&D in a particular "impartial referee," "the GM leans back" sort of fashion. If they learned to play in a more narrative, "GM leans forward" sort of fashion -- or if they tried both ways and decide they liked the latter version more -- then that's the way they choose to play D&D. It becomes an uphill battle for anyone who doesn't play that way to convince another group "hey, you guys should go over and play another game so that D&D can remain the bailiwick of DMs who lean back." The burden is on the other games to say "This is a better narrative version of D&D", not on other players to say "You're not having as much fun with D&D as you could with other games, so you should go play them."


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## KidSnide (Feb 11, 2010)

Wow, that's a lot of questions...



Ariosto said:


> How does the GM guide and participate?




Many, many ways.  The short answer is that the GM plays a role in deciding what the PCs are going to do, principally by convincing the players that certain things will be fun.  

But there are plenty of other "story telling techniques" that are part of the GM's "guide and participate" role.  I think there's a chapter in the DMG2 devoted largely to this subject.  I also suggest checking out the description of PCat's convention game up thread (which I also had the pleasure of playing in).  Speaking of up thread, I answered a similar question from RogueAttorney at: http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...storytelling-dm-looks-like-4.html#post5083515



Ariosto said:


> How does the path of "the story" onto which events are to be guided get distinguished from what is not "the story"?




Well, this depends on your perspective.  As a trivial matter, events become "The Story" when they happen, but that's no different from a sandbox game.  

But I think you're asking how can you tell what events are part of "The Story" before they happen.  That's a harder question to answer because (as PCat noted a few posts up) a good story teller GM doesn't have one single idea of "The Story" before it happens.  A good story teller GM has multiple ideas for what might happen next and creates new ones on the fly.

That said, a good story teller GM might have multiple dramatic moments that he is guiding the plot towards, with the caveat that - as a good story teller GM - the PCs are given the freedom to choose actions that *don't* lead to those moments.  Those moments (or NPCs, or encounters) are all potentially a part of "The Story."

Things that aren't a part of "The Story" are the boring bits that get cut out.  Certainly, I'm willing to tell a player out-of-game that an idea they are proposing will result in boring gameplay with little success or accomplishment.  Most players are thankful for not having to play out material that is dull, humiliating and/or pointless.



Ariosto said:


> How is this reconciled with the distinction of the role of GM, the asymmetry of participant powers?




I'm not sure what there is to reconcile.  Acting as a strictly neutral arbiter and/or scenario builder aren't the only things GMs can do.  They can also act as editors or directors.  It's just a question of whether or not they choose to.  Either way, the GM has a ton of power, and the only real limit is the GM's ability to make it fun for the players so they don't leave.



Ariosto said:


> How do the 'players' remain _players of a game_ as opposed to theatrical performers?




Players are players of the game because (unlike actors) they make meaningful decisions that have significant consequences.  In most (but not all) good story telling games, those meaningful decisions lead to whether or not the PCs are succesful in the primary objectives (and whether they survive the effort).  

You could also create a game in which survival and success are not at issue and the real decisions and consequences are all about inter-PC relationships.  I'll agree that D&D is probably not a great tool for that sort of campaign.



Ariosto said:


> Oh, yes: What makes _Dungeons & Dragons_ a tool of choice for such an undertaking?




Because D&D includes four things: 
(1) the ability to create varied characters with interestingly different abilities, so each PC has a niche of competence/expertise, 
(2) a fun tactical combat sub-game (and, less often, a fun non-combat sub-game) that allows the players to employ the tactical expertise to achieve their goals in an atmosphere of tension and excitement, 
(3) a collection of mutually understood fantasy tropes that allow the story to proceed in a more easily explained context, and 
(4) resources for GMs that make it easier to write fun and balanced obstacles to overcome (or fail at overcomming).

Others probably have a slightly different list, but that's my "top of my head" list of helpful attributes.  I'll also note that, IMO, 4e does a better job at providing these features than earlier editions.

-KS


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## The Shaman (Feb 11, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> I tend to start some plots running, and see which ones the players are likely to meddle in. If they ignore a given plot, it will probably affect things later on. However, I'm careful not to have a plot that nobody's interested in turn out to mean Very Bad Things if they ignore them. In my experience, players don't particularly enjoy being punished for pursuing the plots they're more interested in by having to go back to the plots they're not, now with higher stakes. So to some extent there's story guidance rather than strong simulation, because I do want the players to pick the style of adversity they enjoy most, and scale that up accordingly.



I'm leary of using the word 'simulation' on a gaming forum, as it carries a lot of baggage with a certain subset of gamers which may not have anything to do with how I mean it, so let me try to sum up my approach to running a setting like so: the world is what it is and it responds to the players and their characters only as much as they are willing and able, through skill and luck, to influence it.

Put another way, it's the players' role to make the world respond to their characters, not the referee's.

I fully expect the adventurers to set and pursue goals, but I do nothing to tailor the world or tilt the flow of events toward or away from those goals. Consequences flow from the choices the players make for their characters. If a player decides he wants his character to become the greatest swordsman in France, a master superior of the _Academie d'Armes_, and found his own fencing school in Paris, then that's awesome and I wish him luck, but I'm not going to change the game to revolve around that adventurer's goals. If the player wants to eke out his character's niche, then he must do so amid the swirling tides of the setting.







Barastrondo said:


> (I am also not above the old trick of, when the players become excited about a plotline and visualize it as more far-reaching and dangerous than I had originally planned, quietly stepping it up to meet their expectations. Villains modify their plans as the players get involved, or maybe their ambitions were cleverly hid even from me! Sometimes a mountain can turn out to be a molehill, but I also think it's best to avoid players ending up disappointed that something is less exciting than they'd hoped.)



As a referee I won't do this and as a player I find it very disappointing. I like matching my wits against the referee's schemes, and if the schemes are nothing more than illusions created in response to my own suppositions then I am in fact doing nothing more than chasing my own tail. Of course I'll solve the mystery because I'm the one creating it as I go. Feh on that.

If I understand you correctly, your measure of a 'good' or 'successful' game is that players and their characters only face the adversity they choose and their expectations are consistently met by moving the goal in whatever direction they kick the ball, but for me that's pretty much the polar opposite of what I look for as a player, or offer as a referee. Events that are beyond my control challenge my creativity and adaptability; moments of frustration in the course of a game make the achievement of success that much more rewarding.







Barastrondo said:


> Very neat work! How would you frame an opening play session in this setting? I'm curious about the ideal new player experience you'd have in mind.



It's up to the players. They make their characters, I'll present them with current events and rumors appropriate to their character backgrounds, and they can figure out what they do next.

The adventurers are in a world humming with activity. They need to make themselves a part of that. Join a fencing school. Join a regiment. Become a courtier. Become a knight. Buy an office. Take vows as a priest. Captain a privateer. Spy for the Cardinal. Spy _on_ the Cardinal. Take a mistress. Form a gang. Visit a fair. Visit the theatre. Gamble. Carouse.

But please, don't just sit there waiting for me to introduce 'the plot.'

If the characters connect with the setting, the setting will respond to them in kind. Push and the world pushes back. That's where adventure is found.

And no, I don't leave this to chance. Part of character creation is not only defining the what the character is, but also what she wants to be, and some ideas on how she might go about getting there.


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## Janx (Feb 11, 2010)

one thing that stands out, particularly in how barastrondo and Shaman just said about getting the players moving, is there are various techniques and expectations from gms and players alike on "priming the pump"

For those who don't know, a hand-pump takes a bit of water to get it working, literally, I've had to pour a bucket of water into the pump, to get ot primed so the does its pumping action.  This is called priming.

As a GM, we all have different ideas on priming the pump, getting the players moving.  If the GM takes no action to get the players moving, and the players take no action to start moving, you have a very dull game.

If I have players who have no idea of where to start, as a GM, I will create an event (with back story and assumed follow-up encounters) to get them doing something.  Attack them, blame them, give them a map, something that will likely make them react.

If I have players who are telling me what they want to do before or as soon as they hit the game table, then I make up a reasonable series of obstacles and encounters to pursuing that goal.  

it's not all or nothing.  It's push/pull communication.  If the party isn't pushing info (goals/actions) to me, I am pulling them to a goal or action.

As a GM, I try to make it "dramatic" whether I'm pulling, or they're pushing.  Since it is highly possible the players will choose a goal I didn't prepare for(imagine in sandbox play), I inherently have the right to create challenges to that goal, to make it interesting.  Otherwise, when a PC says, I want to run for Sherriff, it'd be pretty boring if I said, "ok, you put your name on the ballot, the election comes, you win, you are now the sherriff"

One of the things I see, is my job is to make challenges to goals, that are fair, reasonable, and make for a fun time.  I don't really make the goals, when the players are idle, or at ease, I instigate trouble and make events happen that MIGHT become the players' goals.  From there, more game happens.

Making challenges isn't much different than stocking a dungeon for a dungeon crawl.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 11, 2010)

KidSnide said:


> I also suggest checking out the description of PCat's convention game up thread (which I also had the pleasure of playing in).




That's awesome; I am apparently meeting EN Worlders all the time without realizing it.

One thing about that game that would make any GM look good is having had great players!

Which suggests some questions for GMs:
- before play starts, how do you communicate to your players what your role in guiding the plot is, and what you expect of them?

- during a campaign, how do you get feedback from your players about what mix of guidance vs. freedom they'd like (given that even people who sign up for a campaign that you accurately describe ahead of time may realize they don't actually like sandbox or storytelling, or have different ideas of what that meant)?

- where does the player's input into what happens next come from: is it all played out at the table such that future directions emerge purely from PC actions, and/or do of-game meta-discussions about player or character goals shape upcoming events in the game?

- if you get feedback that players want more or less of some element in the game, how do you respond?

Actual play examples here are especially useful, I think.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 11, 2010)

The Shaman said:


> I'm leary of using the word 'simulation' on a gaming forum, as it carries a lot of baggage with a certain subset of gamers which may not have anything to do with how I mean it, so let me try to sum up my approach to running a setting like so: the world is what it is and it responds to the players and their characters only as much as they are willing and able, through skill and luck, to influence it.




Sure. I take your meaning. 



> I fully expect the adventurers to set and pursue goals, but I do nothing to tailor the world or tilt the flow of events toward or away from those goals. Consequences flow from the choices the players make for their characters. If a player decides he wants his character to become the greatest swordsman in France, a master superior of the _Academie d'Armes_, and found his own fencing school in Paris, then that's awesome and I wish him luck, but I'm not going to change the game to revolve around that adventurer's goals.




I would, but perhaps not in the way that you mean. If a player came to me with such a goal, I would devote more of my attention to making that goal something that was more personal. If someone were to create Jean-Louis from Scaramouche, for instance, I would probably create his rival the Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr after he created his character (or work with the player to create him, though perhaps withholding certain key plot twists that occur to me) rather than selecting a potential rival from those that already exist, if that makes sense. 



> If the player wants to eke out his character's niche, then he must do so amid the swirling tides of the setting.As a referee I won't do this and as a player I find it very disappointing. I like matching my wits against the referee's schemes, and if the schemes are nothing more than illusions created in response to my own suppositions then I am in fact doing nothing more than chasing my own tail. Of course I'll solve the mystery because I'm the one creating it as I go. Feh on that.




Mmm. If a player is beaten or felled by a scheme they had some part in -- defeated by the six-fingered man he described as his father's murderer, or overwhelmed by the conspiracy that I'd expanded to fill a larger role when I saw the delighted glint in my players' eyes -- that's not illusory. The effects wind up being largely the same, I'm just cribbing from my players among other sources of inspiration.

That said, I quite take your point. If discovering things that are set up with the intention that you're probably not going to discover them is a source of delight, yeah, we would have incompatible gaming styles. 



> If I understand you correctly, your measure of a 'good' or 'successful' game is that players and their characters only face the adversity they choose and their expectations are consistently met by moving the goal in whatever direction they kick the ball, but for me that's pretty much the polar opposite of what I look for as a player, or offer as a referee.




No, not quite. I don't play a "no surprises" game. Unexpected troubles and plotlines arise all the time, things the players don't choose. But I do keep tabs on what players are responding to with enthusiasm. If most of the group is actively disinterested in fighting against the forces of a given religion, then I don't push that conflict as something they absolutely must get involved with. The conflict doesn't magically vanish, but I make sure they have options to, say, get another faction of NPCs to handle the conflict so they don't have to worry about it. Essentially, I've been in the situation where I felt that in-character I was bound to pursue a Very Important Conflict, or bad things would happen, while as a player I had no real interest in that conflict or the antagonists that came with it. I would rather have been in another portion of the setting doing something else. I don't really want my players to feel that way. Wasn't much fun.

As a caveat, though, I play all-but-exclusively with existing friends. So I already know much of what they like, and what they find interesting. Letting one plotline fade gracefully into the background because nobody like the sound of it is a largely theoretical practice, because the situations I tend to set up are ones that the players generally get quite enthusiastic about. 



> If the characters connect with the setting, the setting will respond to them in kind. Push and the world pushes back. That's where adventure is found.
> 
> And no, I don't leave this to chance. Part of character creation is not only defining the what the character is, but also what she wants to be, and some ideas on how she might go about getting there.




Planting the seeds of the first session during character creation is indispensable, no argument here. 

So would you start that first session with the question of "Where are you, and what are you doing?", or are you more inclined to get them all in one place first and see what happens? For that matter, would you encourage players to pursue goals as a group, or would you expect the average session to have them scattered across the city for most of the evening?


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## Truename (Feb 11, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> I was running one of my favorite old Dungeon modules for our 2e campaign; this would be roughly back in '93 or '94. The module is one of those "PCs are stuck at an inn during a blizzard, and at least one person is a murderer." In fact, two people are - and they're doppelgangers. The inn-keeper and his older son has been replaced, leaving his wife and youngest son freaked out by the differences in their personalities and scared by their anger. Everything comes to a head while people are snowed in.




I remember that module! Never got a chance to run it, but man, it looked awesome. (Why don't we get modules like that anymore?)

Instead, I ran "Old Man Katan and His Mushroom Band"... twice.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 11, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> discovering things that are set up with the intention that you're probably not going to discover them is a source of delight




This is definitely a big thrill in our current campaign; Caverns of Thracia is full of stuff like that. I'm pleased that so many of them have in fact been discovered, but even before they had secret-door-detecting swords and the like I got a kick just from watching the PCs walk past hidden areas and thinking about the evil that lurked feet away from the unsuspecting adventurers, and I think "you mean that was there all along?" adds extra spice to the players' thrill of discovery.

As a player I'm very sensitive to intention. I'm uncomfortable if I think that what the GM does or doesn't intend for my character to experience is the major determinant in what happens in the game, and am willing to trade a high degree of inefficiency in getting what I want for the feeling that when I do it's wrested from a coldly objective universe by the virtue of my deeds alone.


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## KidSnide (Feb 11, 2010)

Tav_Behemoth said:


> As a player I'm very sensitive to intention. I'm uncomfortable if I think that what the GM does or doesn't intend for my character to experience is the major determinant in what happens in the game, and am willing to trade a high degree of inefficiency in getting what I want for the feeling that when I do it's wrested from a coldly objective universe by the virtue of my deeds alone.




Interesting.  As a player, I'm very sensitive to whether or not what my character is doing matters, either to character development or in the game world.  I'm willing to trade a ton of autonomy to make sure that my character is in a position so that my actions and decisions have meaningful consequences.  

At the same time, I find it frustrating to wander around without an objective.  (That said, killing things, taking their stuff and getting more powerful _is_ pretty fun, at least while I'm still developing mastery of the system.)

-KS


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 11, 2010)

Cool, thanks for the perspective!

I think the common ground would be that both of us would be frustrated with an environment that we couldn't prod and push and get traction on - "you're floating in Limbo and there's nothing around" - or with a situation where the GM is strongly signaling that there's only one possible outcome (me because I'd chafe at being steered there, you because the consequences don't really stem from your decision if there aren't enough alternatives to make it an actual choice).


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## Barastrondo (Feb 11, 2010)

For my part, when I play it's a mix. I certainly expect the GM's intention to weigh heavily on what we do: even if he impartially runs a module, I hope he selected that module with the intention of showing us a good time. I like to pick what matters to my character rather than having something assigned; but I've had fun with pregenerated characters at con situations before, too. Some nights I really want to be the one driving the action, because I'm full of energy and ideas; other nights, I'm beat and I want to sit back and let the GM propel something at me. I'm not looking for the same thing every night, or with every system, or even with every character.

Mostly, though, I guess I want to play what my friends are good at. My brother runs a very intense game that doesn't easily fall on one end of the spectrum, so I expect a mix of narrative techniques and player-determined goals there. Another friend has a very exploration-rich world with piles of stuff going on without player input, which is fairly strongly sandbox, with the slight exception that he has so much stuff going on that we're frequently reacting to the world. So that makes him kind of storytelling, I guess? 

So yeah, as a player, it's all good. It could be all bad with the wrong GMs, too, but hey, I'm lucky.


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## The Shaman (Feb 12, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> If someone were to create Jean-Louis from Scaramouche, for instance, I would probably create his rival the Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr after he created his character (or work with the player to create him, though perhaps withholding certain key plot twists that occur to me) rather than selecting a potential rival from those that already exist, if that makes sense.



_Flashing Blades_ characters include Advantages and Secrets which do a very good job in emulating elements of swashbuckling source literature.

That said, Sworn Vengeance is perhaps my _least _favorite of the Secrets a player may choose for her character. I accept it because it's true to the genre and it's included in the rules, but I greatly prefer rivalries to come out of the shared experience of play around the table and not as background fiction.







Barastrondo said:


> If discovering things that are set up with the intention that you're probably not going to discover them is a source of delight, yeah, we would have incompatible gaming styles.



Sounds like.

I like puzzles and mysteries in roleplaying games, and the idea that the referee is simply changing the pieces around to 'tell a better story' honestly irritates me far more than the prospect of failing to solve the puzzle or mystery.







Barastrondo said:


> I don't play a "no surprises" game. Unexpected troubles and plotlines arise all the time, things the players don't choose. But I do keep tabs on what players are responding to with enthusiasm. If most of the group is actively disinterested in fighting against the forces of a given religion, then I don't push that conflict as something they absolutely must get involved with. The conflict doesn't magically vanish, but I make sure they have options to, say, get another faction of NPCs to handle the conflict so they don't have to worry about it.



Is it possible for no one to deal with it, and for the conflict to grow unchecked?







Barastrondo said:


> Essentially, I've been in the situation where I felt that in-character I was bound to pursue a Very Important Conflict, or bad things would happen, while as a player I had no real interest in that conflict or the antagonists that came with it. I would rather have been in another portion of the setting doing something else. I don't really want my players to feel that way. Wasn't much fun.



If the whole campaign was about the Very Important Conflict in which I wasn't interested, then I would simply beg off as gracefully as possible.

But if it's something that has a finite endpoint? Well, sometimes we do what we want, and sometimes we do what we must.







Barastrondo said:


> As a caveat, though, I play all-but-exclusively with existing friends. So I already know much of what they like, and what they find interesting. Letting one plotline fade gracefully into the background because nobody like the sound of it is a largely theoretical practice, because the situations I tend to set up are ones that the players generally get quite enthusiastic about.



That does make a difference.







Barastrondo said:


> Planting the seeds of the first session during character creation is indispensable, no argument here.
> 
> So would you start that first session with the question of "Where are you, and what are you doing?", or are you more inclined to get them all in one place first and see what happens? For that matter, would you encourage players to pursue goals as a group, or would you expect the average session to have them scattered across the city for most of the evening?



For _Le Ballet de l'Acier_, the game will begin in Paris in early February 1625. The players get a rundown of current events at both the macro (Cardinal Richelieu was named head of the king's council last August and is solidifying his control, a French expeditionary force is currently serving alongside the Savoyards against the Genoese and their Spanish allies, _et cetera_) and micro (the fair of St Germain is open, there's a new play premiering at the hotel de Bourgogne, _ et cetera_), then they can decide where they want to begin and what they're doing.

During character creation I ask the players to create a network of relationships among their characters. Every adventurer doesn't need to know every other adventurer: A can know B and C, while B can know D and C can know E, for example. I do expect them to begin together, and to at least be convivial toward one another at the start.

As far as mutual goals, that's up to the players. I encourage them to be mutually supportive of one another's characters, but that's ultimately up to them and to be honest, given the genre, I'd actually be fine with some intense PvP conflicts in this particular game.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 12, 2010)

The Shaman said:


> I like puzzles and mysteries in roleplaying games, and the idea that the referee is simply changing the pieces around to 'tell a better story' honestly irritates me far more than the prospect of failing to solve the puzzle or mystery.




Not to "tell a better story," to meet the out-of-character needs of the players. It's the same reason that if my players have had a rough day at the office (even at our office, we have 'em) and want an obvious target for a dynamic conflict rather than an evening of subtle investigative legwork, I'll tweak a session to give them what they want. If the puzzle and mystery were the most important thing to my players, and they'd gladly risk a couple of hours of boredom and frustration to make sure that they get their answers the hard way, then yes, I would set things up so that the mysteries can only be solved by pre-determined fashion, and cut no slack.



> Is it possible for no one to deal with it, and for the conflict to grow unchecked?




Yes, if that's their choice. However, it's been my experience that if players are actively disinterested in a given conflict, if you push it on them six months later, and it now will take _more_ attention, time, resources, blood, sweat and tears to deal with, it doesn't generally become more fun to play through. If anything, it becomes more of a burden. I just don't want my players to feel like they wasted an evening of play doing drudge work, particularly in this post-college, some-have-kids, can't-game-all-the-time era. That doesn't mean "no adversity you don't specifically request" or "whatever decision you make is the correct one." It just means I'll try to give them the flavors of adversity they're most interested in dealing with. 



> If the whole campaign was about the Very Important Conflict in which I wasn't interested, then I would simply beg off as gracefully as possible.
> 
> But if it's something that has a finite endpoint? Well, sometimes we do what we want, and sometimes we do what we must.




I totally agree, as far as the characters are concerned. But if the players aren't doing what they enjoy, why are they playing in the first place? If a player absolutely hates romantic subplots I'm not going to force one on him no matter how realistic it might be that a given NPC would fall in love and bring a lot of complications along. It's the same principle, just in terms of overall conflict arcs. 

Again, though, I can afford to play exclusively with friends with similar interests, so I rarely have to make that call. But (to pick a random example), if I said "There's an encroaching fleet of spelljammers that are going to pillage half the world if nothing's done" and then half the group said they really didn't like the concept of spelljammers, I'd try to work something out. I would rather they didn't feel like I was punishing them for not beating their faces against a spelljammer-shaped wall until they could get back to the storylines they _wanted_ to play. 



> During character creation I ask the players to create a network of relationships among their characters. Every adventurer doesn't need to know every other adventurer: A can know B and C, while B can know D and C can know E, for example. I do expect them to begin together, and to at least be convivial toward one another at the start.




Have you seen the Spirit of the Century approach? Not that I'd recommend it for your game (it's definitely keyed more toward a deliberate literary emulation than the simulation of the world's in-character rules), but it's a clever method of encouraging players to have fun coming up with character connections.



> As far as mutual goals, that's up to the players. I encourage them to be mutually supportive of one another's characters, but that's ultimately up to them and to be honest, given the genre, I'd actually be fine with some intense PvP conflicts in this particular game.




Sounds pretty solid. Good luck with it!


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## SteveC (Feb 12, 2010)

LostSoul said:


> The idea that a "sandbox" and a good story are opposed to each other is, perhaps, a fallacy.
> 
> The link in my sig - the Burning Empires game - is an example of me learning to run games in a "sandbox" mode.  The story (and I think it was a decent story, sometimes, though lacking a satisfying conclusion) was about PCs and their agendas conflicting with NPCs and their agendas.
> 
> ...



I think this is a good point: the notion that sandbox and storytelling are diametrically opposed to each other is at the very least an oversimplification. In my estimation, a good GM and a good campaign will have elements of both.

I also own Burning Empires...and I think it's a very odd duck of roleplaying games. It is highly structured and controlled gameplay, which makes you think it's going to be railroading, but at the same time it's all about player choices and what to you do in a particular situation. It is definitely one of the most unusual RPGs I've ever come across, and does a good job of throwing most game theory on its ear.

To address another point, in the Burning Sky campaign, for example, the first few adventures are somewhat railroadish, as they definitely take the group in a very specific direction. At the same time, within that framework, they offer tremendous freedom as to how to get there.

In the Scouring of Gate Pass, the group has the goal of getting the Maguffin and then getting out of town heading in a particular direction. That is bordering on railroading on the surface. The reason the adventure worked for me (and I've run it successfully for two different groups) was that given that context, a group is given given complete freedom as to how to accomplish that. The adventure suggests several options and gives enough information to the GM so that they can react quite well to what a particular group wants to try.

At the same time, it presents a number of set-piece encounters that the group is likely to go through, which again may make some groups think of it as a railroady adventure. At the same time, my two different groups avoided some of the encounters and did some others entirely out of order for what the adventure assumed would happen...and it worked out just fine.

The Fire Forest is even more of a structured game environment (an almost entirely artificial one) but it also offers tremendous freedom in terms of the choices the group is offered. I think some groups might simply have a problem with how they are forced to make those choices.

I would classify Burning Sky as more of a storytelling adventure path, but it is definitely not a linear approach...groups are given a lot of freedom about how to get to where they need to go, but ultimately some may not like the notion that there is a particular direction to go in the first place.

So it isn't just as simple as an either/or scenario to be certain. I would say that the only thing that's definite about a story telling game is that there is a story...something larger than the group and something that exists outside of it going on.


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## Ariosto (Feb 12, 2010)

As a player, I like to *use* my autonomy to make sure that my character is in a position so that my actions and decisions have meaningful consequences.

At the same time, I find it frustrating to wander around without an objective. Therefore, I *choose* an objective.



			
				Barastrondo said:
			
		

> ... only with storytelling techniques added to the arsenal.



The question is, *what are* those additional techniques?



			
				Barastrondo said:
			
		

> Remember, "the story" is not a predetermined outcome. It's something that is built in play.



That is the case in the _non-_storytelling game. The question is, *what is different* about your storytelling game? Well, as a matter of fact some _prior_ concept of "the story" is necessary in order to "guide" anything toward it and away from something else. You've got to _know_ the way to San Jose before you can choose it on that basis! Otherwise, you're right back to the old "non-storytelling" game in which whatever happens is -- *after the fact* -- identified as "the story". The arrow of time and causality here is a fact of life.



> Play with a GM you trust, basically. Since things are often ad-libbed, there is no player ability to audit the books.



Again, no difference is addressed. The difference that I would _like_ to see addressed is that you are moving the GM from a disinterested judge to a judge with an agenda. The exceptional powers remain, but not the critical distinction in role.



> There's actually ...



So many words, completely to avoid the question! When a GM is forcing events to conform to a "story", he or she is acting like a theatrical director -- _not_ a game umpire. The contrast between what the 'players' are allowed by Orson Welles and the decisive decision-making many people associate with _playing a game_ is the point here.



> The group's desire to play Dungeons & Dragons.



Yet more avoidance of actual dialog? It is frustrating ... depending on what your definition of 'is' is, Senator. I am not talking about whipping out Game X and calling it "D&D" just because one happens to be Bill Slavicsek. I could whip out the same game and call it Macaroni, obviously.

Someone could "have a desire for his tractor to fly". However, simply repeating that statement of desire would not answer the really interesting interpretation -- the *common-sense* interpretation, I think -- of the question, "What makes a tractor a vehicle of choice for flight?" The restatement *adds nothing* to the conversation!

This is a question about practical matters of game implementation, where "the rubber hits the road" -- where new 'editions' might possibly have some justification related to _playing the game_.



> It hies back to people not playing D&D the same way.



As opposed to everyone playing all those other games the same way? I don't see that. Neither do I see how that is any argument at all for doing a 'makeover' of D&D instead of trying to do storytelling with, say, The Storyteller System. Last but not least, I do not see how "people not playing the same way" gives such self-evident -- for so you treat it -- privilege to those who think that playing it as the designers designed it to be played sucks. How is that a warrant for them to dictate what the game shall "Officially" be to those who have made the mistake of choosing the game because  (madness of madnesses!) they actually like it as it is?

Help me out here; throw me a bone of logical reasoning. Somehow, it does not appear to me that AD&D became the #1 RPG on the basis of how many people thought it was the wrong design with the wrong design goals. Nor have I seen people flocking to White Wolf because they find the "storytelling" thing _such a drag_ as to demand spending their hard-earned cash on it.


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## Ariosto (Feb 12, 2010)

KidSnide said:
			
		

> I think there's a chapter in the DMG2 devoted largely to this subject.



Yes; the very first chapter. Has anyone here read it? (I _think_ they got Robin Laws to write at least a portion.)



> That said, a good story teller GM might have multiple dramatic moments that he is guiding the plot towards, with the caveat that - as a good story teller GM - the PCs are given the freedom to choose actions that *don't* lead to those moments.  Those moments (or NPCs, or encounters) are all potentially a part of "The Story."




So, the difference looks to me like this: In the "non-storytelling" game, the player makes a choice and consequences follow; the freedom to choose is directly actual. In the "storytelling" game, that really just presents a choice _for the GM_: whether to allow the consequences or to replace them with 'guidance'.

In another kind of "storytelling" game, player choice is in a sense _even more_ direct. Instead of choosing actions for a particular character, the player chooses _outcomes_ -- changes in state for the wider world. A seemingly classic example is the player whose choice is not "I look in the wall safe" but rather, "I find the Maltese contract," or even "I find something that causes a scandal that removes my rival from the political arena."

The outcome, then, is not a consequence of choices of action; it _dictates_ creation of a narrative of actions that rationalizes after the fact how the new state of affairs came to be.

On the continuum of those three kinds of game, the imagined world of space, time, identity, and causality becomes increasingly amorphous.



> I'm not sure what there is to reconcile. Acting as a strictly neutral arbiter and/or scenario builder aren't the only things GMs can do. They can also act as editors or directors.



To some of us those are most definitely *different* things, the question of just which we're getting into being in fact *the* essential question! This is a position very well founded in a long and well documented history, so conventional as to be about as _trivial_ a thing as I can imagine. Prefer away, whichever you will! Denial of the fact of alternatives is not helpful, though.



> Players are players of the game because (unlike actors) they make meaningful decisions that have significant consequences.



The question is *how* they get to "make meaningful decisions that have significant consequences." I can make vague and unsupported generalizations for myself; I ask a question of someone else to be _informed_! Was the USSR "a democracy"? Citizens in the Soviet Union got to vote for the _Communist Party_ candidate of their choice. The devil is in the _details_, not in the hand-waving.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 12, 2010)

Ariosto, maybe you could help us out by giving some details of your actual play?

I'm interested in your perspective, but I can (and have) read theories and texts on my own. The most unique thing I can get from your contribution to this thread is how you personally translate ideas into action at the table.

As a GM, what techniques do you use to facilitate gameplay that's enjoyable for you and your players? Do you play with people who've been playing with one another for a long time, newbies, or a mix of both? Does everyone come to the game with the same expectations about GM style; if so, why, if not, what do you to to get them on the right page?


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## KidSnide (Feb 12, 2010)

Ariosto, I feel like we're talking past each other.  Just to be clear, I agree that a sandbox style game with a neutral arbiter GM is a fun and valid way of playing D&D.  I never said anything to the contrary, and I don't think I implied anything to the contrary.  I'm certainly not trying to deny that this is Gygax's style and that it's been around for a real long time.  I've played in quite a few of those games and quite enjoyed some.  

So, when we have the following back and forth:



			
				Ariosto said:
			
		

> KidSnide said:
> 
> 
> > Ariosto said:
> ...




I'm denying the alternative.  _Of course_, a GM *can* be a neutral arbiter -- I never said otherwise.  What I'm saying is that a GM *can also* act as an editor and a director and this doesn't make him not a GM.  (and, certainly, the DMG2 seems to agree.)



Ariosto said:


> KidSnide said:
> 
> 
> > But there are plenty of other "story telling techniques" that are part of the GM's "guide and participate" role.  I think there's a chapter in the DMG2 devoted largely to this subject.
> ...



Of course, we've read it!  (Well, at least some of us have read it.)  I wouldn't have presented it as an example of Storytelling techniques, otherwise.  In particular, I recommend the sections on:
Classic Story Structure
Turning Points
Branching
Cooperative Arcs
Recurring Characters
Predestined
Vignettes

I'll also note the more generic sections on Introducing Player Suggestions and What Your Players Want, which I think are written from a story telling perspective, but are probably equally applicable to a sandbox game.



Ariosto said:


> So, the difference looks to me like this: In the "non-storytelling" game, the player makes a choice and consequences follow; the freedom to choose is directly actual. In the "storytelling" game, that really just presents a choice _for the GM_: whether to allow the consequences or to replace them with 'guidance'.




Yes and no.  If a PC makes a well-informed (or knowingly ill-informed decision) decision, then I'll almost always allow the consequences to take place.  

I think an important role of a GM is to make sure that the PC's decisions have intentionality.  The players need enough context so that they have a fair chance of understanding the potential consequences of their actions.  Otherwise, they are just acting randomly with (perceived) random results.  Therefore, if a player tries to do something that suggests to me that the player lacks understanding that his or her character would have, I'll tell the player what his or her character knows and give the player a chance to reconsider the action.  But I don't think of that as being a part of the "story telling" style -- it's just a part of GMing.

But there are rare occasions in which guidance will be more story directed.  For example, I have two PCs with a romantic interest in one another.  One character gave the other a very thoughtful gift, but then said something stupid which made the recipient uninterested in speaking to the giver for quite some time.  It was a delightful and organic misunderstanding.  It was also very convenient because the recipient was going to be missing the next 6 or 7 sessions while the other PCs were planning on traveling to a new city.  So, when the giver tried to correct the misunderstanding, I assumed my "director" role and told him not to fix it.  It was much better narratively if the recipient character spent the next few sessions off in a huff.

But, as a general matter, good story telling GMing isn't about interfering with player choice.  Once the PCs have made a decision, a good GM needs to respect it (at least most of the time).  The main way in which a story telling GM gets involved is by deciding what the adventure is, while allowing the players to decide how to play it.  War of the Burning Sky is a good example of this, as SteveC discussed above at http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...storytelling-dm-looks-like-8.html#post5086789.



Ariosto said:


> The question is *how* they get to "make meaningful decisions that have significant consequences." <snip> The devil is in the _details_, not in the hand-waving.




That's going to depend on the game, of course.  For a general discussion, see the Branching section in the DMG2.  

The Aalterdam games at AnonyCon are also good examples of this.  It's a two round format in which the first round sets up the scenario and the second around allows the PCs to determine the direction that the world takes until the next convention.  So, for example, the first round might put the PCs on a quest seeking out the Fountain of Youth.  In the second round, they find it (they have to overcome obstacles first, but they're certainly expected to succeed) and have the difficult inter-PC discussion of what to do with it, with profound implications for the game world.  (Because of those decisions, there is a city state now ruled by an effectively immortal former-PC.)  It's a convention game, but it's an example of how strong GM direction puts the PCs in a position in which their decisions have a major impact on the game world.

-KS


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## Barastrondo (Feb 12, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> The question is, *what are* those additional techniques?




KidSnide's provided a good rundown. Personally, here's a couple of the ones I use most often:

Themes. Choosing, for instance, to stock a dungeon with critters that are all thematically related and omitting anything that, while logical, is more distracting from the overall motif. For example, the choice not to use ice toads in a Viking-themed frozen north game; although they're a viable mechanical choice, it's not terribly Norse to fight giant amphibians. 

Dramatic pacing. Setting up adventures so that you start with minions and outriders, the tension builds as you fight more and more dangerous foes, and finally having a big dramatic conflict at the end. To use examples from as far back as AD&D, the GDQ series and A1-4 are good examples of dramatic pacing: the hill giants lead to the frost giants, who lead to the fire giants, and then you're in the Underdark, and it all culminates in a climactic battle against a demon queen. 



> That is the case in the _non-_storytelling game.




This will happen a fair amount. The definition of a storytelling game is not "the diametric opposite of a non-storytelling game." You will see elements common to both: dice, character sheets, orcs. I'd guess there are very few RPGs out there that use no storytelling techniques whatsoever. The most telling distinction is that storytelling games make more active and conscious use of them. 



> Well, as a matter of fact some _prior_ concept of "the story" is necessary in order to "guide" anything toward it and away from something else. You've got to _know_ the way to San Jose before you can choose it on that basis! Otherwise, you're right back to the old "non-storytelling" game in which whatever happens is -- *after the fact* -- identified as "the story". The arrow of time and causality here is a fact of life.




Bear in mind that the story does not have a fixed point as a goal. It's not like locating San Jose on a map. It's about opportunity. Consider the "lean forward"/"lean back" discussion. If I'm leaning forward, so to speak, it's to add some extra tension or drama to a scene for the purposes of that scene. Where it ends up, I don't know: but I will raise the stakes a bit if I think that's going to engage the players more and get some more narrative juice out of the story. Enhancing the story is more a matter of encouraging one of many "highly appropriate" things to happen than one required thing. 



> Again, no difference is addressed. The difference that I would _like_ to see addressed is that you are moving the GM from a disinterested judge to a judge with an agenda. The exceptional powers remain, but not the critical distinction in role.




Yes, the difference is definitely a change from disinterest to interest. However, the judge's agenda doesn't have to be tyrannical. It is an agenda of "make things interesting and exciting." And the judge exercises those powers on that agenda. Exercising those powers to a more personal or self-serving agenda such as making the players adhere to a pre-prepared script is an abuse.



> When a GM is forcing events to conform to a "story", he or she is acting like a theatrical director -- _not_ a game umpire. The contrast between what the 'players' are allowed by Orson Welles and the decisive decision-making many people associate with _playing a game_ is the point here.




First, a caveat that I believe the "director" metaphor is implicitly imperfect. That said, you have to understand the distinction between a director and a scriptwriter, and the duties that a director may have other than giving directions to the principal actors. Thinking of a director as principally a scriptwriter and dialogue coach for PCs is going to give you the wrong impression. It's the other duties of a director (and stage manager, and SFX, and central casting, and producer) that make such a metaphor close to viable. 

So, rules example from AD&D of guiding a character's personal story: Name level. The rules are actually guiding you to move into a "become a lord of the land, attract followers" evolution of your character story. They guide you in that direction by scaling back your hit points and making the option of attracting followers tied to that level. But they can't force you to become a lord. They just make it an attractive option. 

It's pretty much like that. You nudge by providing more rewards for following a thematic character arc, but you don't demand obedience. Characters who pursue romantic subplots get extra, and appropriate rewards. Vikings who chase Viking-themed stories get extra rewards for doing so. That sort of thing. 



> Yet more avoidance of actual dialog?




It doesn't get any more complicated than that. No group is required to justify their desire to play D&D to anyone else. "Why aren't you playing Storyteller instead?" is a valid question if the group is not having much fun, particularly if the person asking knows and likes Storyteller and is earnestly looking to help. But if the group _is_ having fun with a story-informed D&D, then questioning their motives just comes across as "why are _you_ people in _my_ game" petulance, which is the opposite of productive.



> Someone could "have a desire for his tractor to fly". However, simply repeating that statement of desire would not answer the really interesting interpretation -- the *common-sense* interpretation, I think -- of the question, "What makes a tractor a vehicle of choice for flight?" The restatement *adds nothing* to the conversation!




Going ad absurdum here isn't common sense, and won't help you understand. But the tractor's a good starting point, because it's a multi-purpose tool. It can plow a field, scrape a dirt road, mow a pasture, move hay bales, pull a cart, all kinds of things. That's D&D, all right. And a version of D&D that's built more for storytelling purposes is like a tractor that's being packaged for the rancher rather than the farmer, with all the attachments for a cattle pasture pushed and the ones for plowing and planting and harvesting other kinds of crops on special order. It's aimed at the ranchers who bought all those ranching attachments for the tractor (like the GDQ-model mower and the Name Level(tm) hay bale spike and the Forgotten Realms shovel), and it's aimed at the up-and-coming generation of agriculture students who seem to have an interest spike in ranching.

Though now I admit I'm very entertained by the mental image of a tractor messageboard where a few farmers are posting that a model that wasn't purchased for plowing might as well have wings attached to it. I kind of want to write up a sample thread now. (I may be influenced by this.)



> As opposed to everyone playing all those other games the same way?




No, as opposed to D&D being the only game out there that is played in one way for one reason (which would _really_ be bizarre, given all its editions and settings). The premise that D&D doesn't work with storytelling techniques because it wasn't specifically designed for that overall experience is an interesting theory, but the diversity of active D&D campaigns disproves it.



> I don't see that. Neither do I see how that is any argument at all for doing a 'makeover' of D&D instead of trying to do storytelling with, say, The Storyteller System.




At this point you'd really have to be the one making the argument for why someone is better served trying to add D&D elements to the Storyteller system than adding storytelling elements to the D&D system. They're already doing (and may have been doing for decades) what they feel they enjoy best and would work most elegantly. Therefore, they've found the "right" solution. How do you prove otherwise? What aspects of the Storyteller system in particular would you cite, and how would you recommend implementing them? 



> Last but not least, I do not see how "people not playing the same way" gives such self-evident -- for so you treat it -- privilege to those who think that playing it as the designers designed it to be played sucks. How is that a warrant for them to dictate what the game shall "Officially" be to those who have made the mistake of choosing the game because  (madness of madnesses!) they actually like it as it is?




The purest "privilege" comes from someone having spent the money to gain the rights to publish D&D, pure and simple. If you were to spend the money to do so, the privilege to shape the latest published form of D&D would be your own. This is of course distinct from to the privilege to play the kind of D&D with your friends that you like best and still call it "D&D", which everyone possesses.

However, the fact that people play D&D in different ways is relevant for multiple reasons. For one, it explains how designers might create the sort of D&D that they enjoy playing, and that other people enjoy playing, and yet that you do not. With the understanding that people play D&D differently, nobody is lying: they're not lying when they say they enjoy it, I'm not lying when I say I enjoy it, and you're not lying when you say you don't. 

It also means that there is a market for different styles of D&D. With the business motivation of keeping D&D as a viable brand that is relevant to new gamers every hear, that's an important consideration. 



> Help me out here; throw me a bone of logical reasoning.




(sigh) At some point I hope to have a discussion without this disagreeable tone of voice marching into it and demanding I salute.



> Somehow, it does not appear to me that AD&D became the #1 RPG on the basis of how many people thought it was the wrong design with the wrong design goals.




Well, you absolutely can't discount being the first and having the most name recognition as reasons it became #1. That said, it retained that crown because it could be played in a lot of ways. If there were no concessions to other play styles, if there were a way to enforce all players to play it in exactly the same fashion without emphasizing storytelling techniques or de-emphasizing some of the more exception-based rules, I doubt its hold would have been anywhere as constant. You'd perhaps find that there were probably about as many people playing "true" D&D as there are currently playing Savage Worlds. 

But -- once again -- D&D is a thing of many elements. You can use 75% of the elements as published in any given edition, and change or omit the rest, and you're still playing D&D. Nor is it a new thing for the creators to feel that a significant feworking of the rules would present the experience of D&D better to a different audience. There've been a lot of editions that depart from the old brown box despite the fact that diaglo doesn't need anything else. 

And as I said way back, given the wide variety of people who enjoy D&D, even to the extent of owning and playing different editions, that's pretty awesome.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 12, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> Enhancing the story is more a matter of encouraging one of many "highly appropriate" things to happen than one required thing.




It's awesome when this is the case - but even if so, it's not always apparent to the players. I think we've all had the experience of feeling like the fun the GM has provided for the session requires the players to do a certain thing. 

That's bad GMing and we're better off focusing on the good, but I think that it's important to remember that you may have players whose experience is shaped by those kinds of experience.

I find it so frustrating as a GM when players seem to be trying to second-guess my intentions and figure out "what are we *supposed* to do here" that I spend a lot of effort signaling that I don't have any preconceived ideas. Rolling for plot events (using tools which old-school rules provide in abundance like NPC reactions, random encounters, morale checks, etc.) helps me demonstrate that what happens is out of my control; the players can jump in and try anything they like (and in fact they'll need to if they don't want their fate to be entirely random). 

I don't see this as entirely abdicating my responsibility to deliver a game that's fun for everyone - it just shifts the level at which I do so, whether that's designing random tables such that all the dice outcomes will be exciting or talking to players out of game to say "you know, if you want social intrigue you should stop wandering the woods."


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## awesomeocalypse (Feb 12, 2010)

> It doesn't get any more complicated than that. No group is required to justify their desire to play D&D to anyone else. "Why aren't you playing Storyteller instead?" is a valid question if the group is not having much fun, particularly if the person asking knows and likes Storyteller and is earnestly looking to help. But if the group _is_ having fun with a story-informed D&D, then questioning their motives just comes across as "why are _you_ people in _my_ game" petulance, which is the opposite of productive.




QFT.

Why do I like using D&D to run and play in story-driven games? Because it is fun. More fun, for me and my friends telling the sort of stories we want to tell, than Storyteller or WHFRP or Fantasycraft or any of the other games we've tried. 

The idea that some justification beyond that is required, or that we could somehow be "mistaken" in our belief that D&D is better suited to telling our stories than Storyteller, is silly and, frankly, arrogant and judgemental.

On a related note, the idea that a games cannot be altered, in many cases extremely radically, from their original forms is nonsensical and unfounded. When Joe Naismith invented basketball, nobody could dribble, there was no backboard, and nobody had even heard of "post play" or "jump shots" let alone a 3 pointer. The game that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and Michael Jordan played, that Lebron James and Kobe Bryant play today, has far less in common with the game Naismith first thought up than does D&D4e with OD&D. Does that mean it isn't basketball?


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## Ariosto (Feb 12, 2010)

> What I'm saying is that a GM *can also* act as an editor and a director and this doesn't make him not a GM.



If it please you, a GM can be any thing you care to name, animal, vegetable or mineral. What goes on between consenting adults in the privacy of your game room is certainly no business of mine.

It seems to me no radical innovation difficult to grasp that I reserve the right to expect a *referee* of a game in which _I_ will play to act as just that, _not_ as an 'editor', 'director', 'producer', 'completion insurance underwriter' or any other such job description that in fact does _not_ appear in the rules-book.

(I am not likely any time soon again to play either 4E or The Alan Smithee Project.)



> Of course, we've read it!



You were just uncertain _in which book_ you read it, eh? Memory can get tricky with age!

A convention game can be a fine change of pace, and for a number of reasons they tend to be pretty constrained. Setting up a scenario is hardly some hot new experimental technique, though! I have played my share in Squad Leader, and countless other games, without any imposition of 'story telling'.

To go beyond the set-up, though, and 'play the game' for the players, is to me intolerable. I imagine you have heard of negative reactions to the presumption of the Dragonlance modules. Some years later, _Vecna Lives!_ epitomized why I stopped buying from TSR.

(From what I have heard, RPGA tournaments, then or a bit later, had basically devolved into "Most Popular Drama Queen" contests. Hearing of that is the closest I have come to encountering the extreme that some folks raise as necessitating the opposite extreme of replacing role-playing with roll-playing. Curiously, though, that was _with_ "social skill" NWPs in play!)

My main D&D group recently tried a 'storyline' setup for several sessions. I suppose we'll go back and wrap it up this month or next, but we put it on hiatus by consensus -- with _the DM_ taking the lead in suggesting that.

Besides not being what I want when I want a game of D&D, it highlighted how poorly suited many aspects of the old game are to a certain cramped sort of 'campaign'. A good selection of the "usual suspects" in complaints of alleged poor design came up, when the rules were put to this use for which they assuredly were _not_ designed.

(The DM's attempts to 'fix' some of those with house rules sometimes demonstrated the Law of Unintended Consequences, and in any case gave the enterprise only the less resemblance to Dungeons & Dragons as we had known it.)

I have run some pretty tightly plotted affairs, 'railroads' par excellence, but (A) they were entirely games of my own design, not by any stretch D&D; and (B) they were single-session undertakings. One of them was rather risky, as if players had chosen to respond not merely with a different course of action but with a different perspective on -- a different _interpretation of_ -- events, then the dramatic structure would have been seriously weakened.

(I really, really do not like it when a GM expects people to "act as if" they are ignorant, surprised, or otherwise incapable of taking sensible courses of action. There is an extent to which I can accept strictures, certainly. Bans on outrageous anachronisms are pretty common. However integral that kind of acting, though, may be to a career on stage or screen, it is not the sort of challenge I want in a game! In that latter circumstance, I want to be challenged to _use_ my intelligence and skill. If I am _genuinely_ mystified or surprised, then that is a delight!)



> It's a convention game, but it's an example of how strong GM direction puts the PCs in a position in which their decisions have a major impact on the game world.



Juan Ponce de León was the very model of an 'adventurer' of the sort one might hope to emulate in old-style D&D. His *own* strong direction put him in a position in which his decisions might have a major impact on the world. (And he never found, and probably never really sought, the Fountain of Youth.)


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## Barastrondo (Feb 12, 2010)

Tav_Behemoth said:


> It's awesome when this is the case - but even if so, it's not always apparent to the players. I think we've all had the experience of feeling like the fun the GM has provided for the session requires the players to do a certain thing.
> 
> That's bad GMing and we're better off focusing on the good, but I think that it's important to remember that you may have players whose experience is shaped by those kinds of experience.




Yes. Absolutely yes. It's an easy trap to fall into, because it's the easiest sort of prep time, so I feel a certain level of sympathy for GMs who don't know better yet — but it's pretty punishing on the fun aspect. Bad storytelling GMs spread a bad reputation around quick, and sometimes it's all but impossible to convince someone that what they perceive as the basis of "storytelling style" was an example of doing it badly.



> I don't see this as entirely abdicating my responsibility to deliver a game that's fun for everyone - it just shifts the level at which I do so, whether that's designing random tables such that all the dice outcomes will be exciting or talking to players out of game to say "you know, if you want social intrigue you should stop wandering the woods."




I wouldn't want to suggest that you'd be abdicating that responsibility. I don't think that non-storytelling GMs are any less invested as a whole in their players' enjoyment. It's just the methodology of keeping that enjoyment high — designing those fun random tables versus ad-libbing a quick story trope — that I think you see the primary difference between the styles.


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## Ariosto (Feb 12, 2010)

Barastrondo said:
			
		

> The purest "privilege" comes from someone having spent the money to gain the rights to publish D&D, pure and simple.



Thank you! That is at least rational and related to the question as it was put (not so much what I had in mind, but that's my own miscommunication). It's a circular argument of a sort, in that it is privileging any old thing WotC happened to choose -- not at all that particular one on any merit. It is indeed the _practical_ fact of the matter, though!



> At some point I hope to have a discussion without this disagreeable tone of voice marching into it and demanding I salute.



I disagree with your unreasonable demands for unreasoning assent, especially when I disagree with the supposed Truths. Your haughty dismissals of questions certainly tempted responses more in keeping with your unpleasant tenor. On point after point, you not only offered no logic but _did not at all_ address the matter at hand. The arch manner of avoidance was of the sort used to imply, "You are stupid for asking such a question." If you truly thought that would be helpful in the furtherance of understanding, then I am curious to learn why. It is simply the nature of things that sometimes a statement "isn't even wrong" without some logical context. Something may seem a perfectly self-evident axiom to _you_ while being -- at best, perhaps! -- perfectly obscure to someone else (perhaps less intellectually agile). At worst, it may seem "obviously" something other than what you mean. So, making explicit some of the links in your chain of reasoning may be a big help.



> You can use 75% of the elements as published in any given edition, and change or omit the rest, and you're still playing D&D.



Well, of course you are free to say that -- or that using but 58.33% of any 'D&D' edition, one would still be playing Palladium Fantasy. It all depends on the definition, and you are -- as far as I see -- simply appealing to yourself as "authority". Maybe  you can see how far that bull is as binding as the electrons it's printed on.

Practical interoperability, however, is quite another matter. It's something one can test. Are X and Y "the same game" to the extent that it's no problem to mix up character sheets? Are they different to the extent that a scenario for one requires "conversion" to the other? How much does that require familiarity with _both_?

How much more or less convenient is it than a collision with, say, _Chivalry & Sorcery_ or _RuneQuest_?

This really has only a little to do with the matter of 'storytelling' but all considered I think that little pretty notable. With 4e, I don't think it's just something tacked on as an afterthought in DMG2. I see a lot of care in the design, and above all an unprecedented -- in the annals of 'editions' -- willingness to dump D&D traditions that would just be baggage weighing down the movement in a different direction.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 12, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> I disagree with your unreasonable demands for unreasoning assent, especially when I disagree with the supposed Truths.




No, not "unreasoning assent." Just a polite tone of voice, really. Sort of the kind of relaxed conversation one might have over drinks.


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## KidSnide (Feb 12, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> It seems to me no radical innovation difficult to grasp that I reserve the right to expect a *referee* of a game in which _I_ will play to act as just that, _not_ as an 'editor', 'director', 'producer', 'completion insurance underwriter' or any other such job description that in fact does _not_ appear in the rules-book.




I will simply point out that the current edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 includes a chapter, much of which is dedicated to teaching how to be an "editor" / "director", at least as I use the terms in this context.

I'm not saying that you have to play that way.  As you note, you're welcome to play however you enjoy in the comfort of your own home.  However, storytelling style isn't some random weird thing, but is - in fact - a core part of modern D&D, which is why it's discussed in the manual about how to run D&D.



Ariosto said:


> To go beyond the set-up, though, and 'play the game' for the players, is to me intolerable. I imagine you have heard of negative reactions to the presumption of the Dragonlance modules. Some years later, Vecna Lives! epitomized why I stopped buying from TSR.




Lastly, while Vecna Lives! may be an example of a truly awful story telling adventure, that doesn't mean that every story telling adventure shares its negative characteristics.  In fact, there's a forum on this site in which you can see folks quite enjoying War of the Burning Sky, a much better example of the genre.

I've certainly never been in a well-run story telling game in which the players felt that the GM was playing the game for them.  I don't think a story telling game will ever be your style, Ariosto, but I sometimes wonder if you've played in a good one.  Your posts often describe the entire genre as having features that I think of as only being present in story telling games gone awry -- kind of like describing a history of transportation based solely on the Hidenberg, the Titanic and the HMS Bounty.  

-KS


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## Ariosto (Feb 13, 2010)

> As you note, you're welcome to play however you enjoy in the comfort of your own home. However, storytelling style isn't some random weird thing, but is - in fact - a core part of modern D&D, which is why it's discussed in the manual about how to run D&D.



See, _there_ is that presumption -- "the" manual, indeed! That is _not_ the rules-book I use, which happens to have DUNGEONS & DRAGONS printed on the cover, thank you very much.

And, as I mentioned, I am not likely to be playing 4e. Nor The Alan Smithee Project.



> I don't think a story telling game will ever be your style, Ariosto, but I sometimes wonder if you've played in a good one.



I have, and designed and run some good ones as well.

THIS thread irked me with its reckless misrepresentation of what P&P had written. When you start out with a mean-spirited caricature of another style, you are not doing your cause any good.

On top of the insistence on invidious distinctions comes the claim that you're really great because you're against -- *just what P&P was writing against*. And yet you reserve your fire not for those who advocate it, but for someone who points out that we seem to be _for_ the same things and _against_ the same things, so where's the difference that makes you label me and my friends THEM instead of US?

Well, I guess that's obvious, eh?

I will say again that I have played in, and run, and designed, enjoyable "storytelling" games.


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## Harlekin (Feb 13, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> No, not "unreasoning assent." Just a polite tone of voice, really. Sort of the kind of relaxed conversation one might have over drinks.




I just wanted to give Barastrondo props for staying unfailingly polite in this discussion.


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## Ariosto (Feb 13, 2010)

Considering my complaints, it hardly makes sense to consider unreasonable Barastrondo's remark.

So, I am sorry that I did not sooner apologize for impoliteness directed at him, and to others -- and for the compounded lack of consideration of inflicting such a "tone of voice" on bystanders as well.


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## Starfox (Feb 13, 2010)

With all due respect, Aristo, maybe you should leave this discussion? It is obvious you do not like storytelling game. Why are you trying to add to a discussion about what makes a good storytelling GM when you so obviously think that none exist?



Ariosto said:


> So, the difference looks to me like this: In the "non-storytelling" game, the player makes a choice and consequences follow; the freedom to choose is directly actual. In the "storytelling" game, that really just presents a choice _for the GM_: whether to allow the consequences or to replace them with 'guidance'.
> 
> In another kind of "storytelling" game, player choice is in a sense _even more_ direct. Instead of choosing actions for a particular character, the player chooses _outcomes_ -- changes in state for the wider world. A seemingly classic example is the player whose choice is not "I look in the wall safe" but rather, "I find the Maltese contract," or even "I find something that causes a scandal that removes my rival from the political arena."






Ariosto said:


> THIS thread irked me with its reckless misrepresentation of what P&P had written. When you start out with a mean-spirited caricature of another style, you are not doing your cause any good.




Much earlier in the thread, I said that I hated it when people were trying to make their own definition of my playstyle. It is an insidious version of the strawman argument. You seem to agree with me on this in the latest passage quote above. But why, why do you indulge in it in the earlier quote? "When you start out with a mean-spirited caricature of another style, you are not doing your cause any good." - can't you see that this is exactly what you are doing?

Let me say again; the subject of the thread is "What a great storytelling DM looks like", not "I make up my own definition of what storytelling is and then proceed to demean and crush it, implying that all storytelling games are as bad as those of my imagined definition".


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## Starfox (Feb 13, 2010)

Tav_Behemoth said:


> - before play starts, how do you communicate to your players what your role in guiding the plot is, and what you expect of them?




My first projects in a new setting or with a new group are not very ambitious. I begin with fairly simple tasks and situations, using them to introduce the setting and the themes I want to present in it. As the players and I get to know each other and the setting, I add more complex elements. If there are a campaign restart in the same setting, the story can start out much more involved from the start by introducing elements the players (but not their new characters) know from the start.

Example: Currently playing Savage Tide in Greyhawk. The players are now quite familiar with the setting, some history, pantheons. My next campaign looks like it will use Curse of the Crimson Throne as the core. The main villain might well be Rowyn Kellani, a character from Savage Tide. There will be many more political angles and less pure heroics. Because the players know more, the game can start out more involved.



Tav_Behemoth said:


> - during a campaign, how do you get feedback from your players about what mix of guidance vs. freedom they'd like (given that even people who sign up for a campaign that you accurately describe ahead of time may realize they don't actually like sandbox or storytelling, or have different ideas of what that meant)?




My players generally do not take the initiative. They are content to accept what I throw at them. At the same time, they clearly enjoy different themes differently, and have some side projects of their own that they invest a lot in. Tyhey tell their own stories in the context of the greater story happening around them. Even if the game is mostly reactive, i take great care to use what ideas they have and let them be proactive when they want to be.



Tav_Behemoth said:


> - where does the player's input into what happens next come from: is it all played out at the table such that future directions emerge purely from PC actions, and/or do of-game meta-discussions about player or character goals shape upcoming events in the game?




A mix. We have sessions now and then were we discuss the direction of the plot both in and out of character. I often essay during play, giving the players information their characters would have. My players have learned to rely on their characters lore skills and try to base their actions on what passes for conventional wisdom in the world - something they cannot know about until they ask. I like to point out that what I say is just one view of things, not the absolute truth. Sometimes they debate with me on whether my interpretation of the world is the best one, and occasionally even win those debates. Even a storytelling world must make sense, and if a player shows me my arrangement did not make sense, I am willing to change the world to make it fit our common expectations.



Tav_Behemoth said:


> - if you get feedback that players want more or less of some element in the game, how do you respond?



I generally comply. The game is about having fun - I don't pay my players to play, after all. But in the end, I can't satisfy everyone. If the group as a whole wants something, they generally get it. If one player wants something, I expand on any existing plots that relate to that interest, but I rarely make completely new plots.


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## Ariosto (Feb 13, 2010)

Starfox, I offered no caricature of any style.

The paragraph beginning, "So, the difference looks to me like this: ..." was not even a claim accurately to represent _any_ style -- just feedback of my preliminary, at-that-point understanding (or misunderstanding) of what had been offered. IIRC, the response was that it was not too far from the mark.

The second paragraph is, to the best of my ability and in good faith, an account of a pretty stereotypical example of at least one of the approaches claiming a particular fancy name or other ... "NOT task resolution".  There's a single word that stands in for the "NOT task" part. "Conflict"? (Reminds me of old hex-and-chit wargames, but I think that's it.)

Even if it does not accurately describe that, I reckon it's a fair enough representation of a technique that *I* have tried. So, for that matter, is the other; there's not a whole lot new under that sun!

I was working on storytelling games using techniques borrowed from RPGs before I had heard of anyone else having done so (although I don't think it was prior even to published work in the field). I retain some interest in the field, even though I am not actively engaged in it at present. I do not think that "fudging" a traditional RPG is the way forward, and am inclined to think the "Game Master" position an unhelpful legacy. Naturally, other people have other opinions, and one that is in vogue is to consider as an "improved RPG" what I would call a hybrid.

I happen to like the D&D game I have been playing for decades just fine; changing it into a "storytelling game", or anything else, would be no improvement to me. Some people seem unable to accept such eclectic tastes; if I like my old D&D, then I must "not like" other kinds of games.

Well, I do not feel bound to follow such a horizon-limiting 'rule'!


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## Gimby (Feb 13, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> I happen to like the D&D game I have been playing for decades just fine; changing it into a "storytelling game", or anything else, would be no improvement to me. Some people seem unable to accept such eclectic tastes; if I like my old D&D, then I must "not like" other kinds of games.
> 
> Well, I do not feel bound to follow such a horizon-limiting 'rule'!




Can you quote anyone who has not accepted that you like playing D&D the way you like it? All I'm seeing here is people saying that you can do whatever you like.


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## KidSnide (Feb 13, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> THIS thread irked me with its reckless misrepresentation of what P&P had written. When you start out with a mean-spirited caricature of another style, you are not doing your cause any good.
> 
> On top of the insistence on invidious distinctions comes the claim that you're really great because you're against -- *just what P&P was writing against*. And yet you reserve your fire not for those who advocate it, but for someone who points out that we seem to be _for_ the same things and _against_ the same things, so where's the difference that makes you label me and my friends THEM instead of US?
> 
> I will say again that I have played in, and run, and designed, enjoyable "storytelling" games.




I'm not trying to "fire" at anyone, just to explain and understand.  If I've provided "a mean-spirited caricature of another style," it was certainly not my intention.  If you identify where I did that, I would be happy to explain my intended meaning.

Also, you reference "P&P" a second time.  Can you please explain the reference, perhaps with a link?

-KS


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## Piratecat (Feb 13, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> THIS thread irked me with its reckless misrepresentation of what P&P had written. When you start out with a mean-spirited caricature of another style, you are not doing your cause any good.



That explains the passive-aggressive hostility. Please - next time, and this applies to everyone who's ever read something that makes them angry, just say "I don't think that's a fair statement" to start off with. That way people can apologize and the discussion can continue without the difficult undertone. I'm not a big fan of the "guess why I'm upset" type of conversation.

Either way, cool thread.

Ethan, next time you're up this way I'll introduce you to KidSnide; like (contact), I imagine you guys would get along well in person.


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## The Shaman (Feb 13, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> It's the same reason that if my players have had a rough day at the office (even at our office, we have 'em) and want an obvious target for a dynamic conflict rather than an evening of subtle investigative legwork, I'll tweak a session to give them what they want.





Barastrondo said:


> I just don't want my players to feel like they wasted an evening of play doing drudge work, particularly in this post-college, some-have-kids, can't-game-all-the-time era.



Since I leave the players in control of what's going on in the game, it's not really necessary for me to make adjustments like this. They can provide their own catharsis for the rigor of modern life as they see fit. 


Barastrondo said:


> If a player absolutely hates romantic subplots I'm not going to force one on him no matter how realistic it might be that a given NPC would fall in love and bring a lot of complications along. It's the same principle, just in terms of overall conflict arcs.



Since I'm not forcing plots, sub- or otherwise, on the players, this isn't an issue for me when I'm behind the screen.







Barastrondo said:


> But (to pick a random example), if I said "There's an encroaching fleet of spelljammers that are going to pillage half the world if nothing's done" and then half the group said they really didn't like the concept of spelljammers, I'd try to work something out. I would rather they didn't feel like I was punishing them for not beating their faces against a spelljammer-shaped wall until they could get back to the storylines they _wanted_ to play.



I admit that it's kinda difficult for me to relate to a "fleet of spelljammers that are going to pillage half the world." It's pretty far removed from my own refereeing experiences, as I'm singularly not fond of world-shaking events in the games I run, so I'm at a bit of a loss here, I'm afraid.

Let me see if I can find an analogy closer in spirit to the kinds of games I run. In my _Flashing Blades_ campaign, I'm sticking to the historical timeline of events assuming the adventurers don't do anything to change the major figures in France: if Marillac replaces Richelieu as first minister, or if Gaston succeeds Louis as king, then history will take a left turn, but if not, come 1635 France will declare war on Spain. Sparring through proxies in Italy and the Empire will be replaced by by a direct confrontation between the two most powerful states in Europe which will last for the next two decades.

Now let's say for a moment that, for whatever reason, the players decide their characters don't want to have anything to do with battlefields and international intrigue at this point. If this is the case, they're welcome to pretty much pursue anything else they prefer. The exception to this might be characters who are actively serving in the royal army or navy, or serving as provincial governors or ambassadors. As far as the latter go, it's implicit in their choice of careers that they may be called upon to deal with exactly these circumstances should they arise in the course of the game.

But the players may still opt out if they like. Their characters can resign their positions, or seek other assignments. I expect them to deal with the consequences of those choices in the context of the setting, but they still have significant latitude.

I will not, however, set aside war with Spain because the players aren't interested in the conflict.







Barastrondo said:


> Have you seen the Spirit of the Century approach? Not that I'd recommend it for your game (it's definitely keyed more toward a deliberate literary emulation than the simulation of the world's in-character rules), but it's a clever method of encouraging players to have fun coming up with character connections.



I read through the free rules .pdf but I've never seen the full game. If I get a chance I'll check it out.

Right now my biggest 'outside' influence on the campaign is _Pendragon_. I like the concept of characters as part of a dynasty; it fits the kind of campaign I'd like to run, and one that's well-supported by the career rules in _Flashing Blades_.







Barastrondo said:


> Good luck with it!



And with your games as well.

I've enjoyed the discussion, by the way.


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## Ariosto (Feb 13, 2010)

I think the "non-storytelling DM" is, in the context of this thread, at least as fictional a figure as the "railroading DM".

I am not going to 'defend' causality against Barastrondo. I will simply state that _I_ have no magical power to use information I do not yet possess. I must conceive a goal before I can intentionally direct anything toward it. That is fact.

My opinion is that a great DM lets the players choose their moves for themselves -- and that the wide-open range of viable moves not only once was a signal distinction of D&D from other games, but remains a notable provision of human-moderated RPGs versus electronic offerings. It is to me a virtue to maximize, reducing only by the minimum necessary to accommodate other needs.

Another virtue is the potential for characters to "come alive" with a dynamism that scripted depictions do not provide. This is not only a nifty "end product" but a powerful tool for the DM.

The design of a specific encounter or scene is of rather limited utility. At the extreme, it describes only a momentary event that may not come to pass at all -- with but a single window of opportunity. Working up 5 possible scenes when at most one can take place may be onerously inefficient labor.

Enter the well-realized NPC, the character with _character_. What are his or her values, aspirations, hopes, fears, habits and so on? The fuller one's grasp of those, the easier it is to _deduce_ the character's behavior in response to _any_ circumstances. No longer is it necessary to cover all possibilities by "brute force" methods.

This is applicable to more than just individual people. One can get a similar feel for a community, or an animal species; even a _place_ may take on character this way.

Some game systems are difficult to use without a lot of prepared 'stats', and those can draw a lot of attention to themselves. My own experience, both as a DM and as a player, suggests that there's more mileage in time and energy spent on character definition of the 'soft' sort I have lauded here. I would rather skimp on stats than go the other way.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 13, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Considering my complaints, it hardly makes sense to consider unreasonable Barastrondo's remark.
> 
> So, I am sorry that I did not sooner apologize for impoliteness directed at him, and to others -- and for the compounded lack of consideration of inflicting such a "tone of voice" on bystanders as well.




Thanks, Ariosto. It's appreciated. 



Piratecat said:


> Ethan, next time you're up this way I'll introduce you to KidSnide; like (contact), I imagine you guys would get along well in person.




Sounds like a good deal. Thanks! I hope to be able to take you up on it before long.



The Shaman said:


> Since I leave the players in control of what's going on in the game, it's not really necessary for me to make adjustments like this. They can provide their own catharsis for the rigor of modern life as they see fit.




Sure! It's a good method. I just frequently find that I need to be a proactive nudger, for reasons that vary from group to group. If we play on a weeknight after work, people might not have the energy to come up with proactive agendas, and would rather react to external prompts. If we use bizarre homebrew settings (like my current Gormenghast/Labyrinth/Poe mashup), they frequently prefer that I introduce them to the setting with actively giving them things to react to. It lets them become familiar with the setting through play, without having to do quite much reading up beforehand to see what is likely to fit, and is a little less work than their defining the setting as they go. 

Actually, because I exclusively homebrew, I spend a lot of time working out the details of a setting as I go. I'm running the aforementioned strange baroque city game at the moment, as well as something set in a more Renaissance Italy-inspired fantasy country, and neither of them are settings I've exhaustively detailed ahead of time. So it's not time to figure out a city until the players absolutely are headed there — until then, I simply have a list of notes to work from. My players can guess (and my wife certainly knows) that I don't have everything pre-prepared, but it _is_ all ready for them, if that makes sense. 

I think it wouldn't work for the experience you are interested in; there would be the meta-knowledge that the world is not already fully formed. If that meta-knowledge doesn't bother you, though (as it doesn't for my friends), then there's still the experience of having the world spread out before you in each direction you go, and if a few details are ad-libbed while others have been set for years, it doesn't detract too much from the overall fun of the game.



> I admit that it's kinda difficult for me to relate to a "fleet of spelljammers that are going to pillage half the world." It's pretty far removed from my own refereeing experiences, as I'm singularly not fond of world-shaking events in the games I run, so I'm at a bit of a loss here, I'm afraid.




It's something of a facetious example for me. I'm not fond of world-shaking events, either — largely because as a player I've been on the side where "Hey, it's time to go get involved in this world-shaking event or all the places and NPCs you're fond of will suffer." I really disliked being forced to choose between participating in a conflict that I don't care for or "paying for my choice" by having some of the setting elements I _do_ care for removed.

The real lesson, of course, is that when I'm setting conflicts into motion (such as NPCs preying on other NPCs in a way that PCs may notice and get involved in), I'm careful to pick those that I can guess my players are going to enjoy. But I'm not crazy enough to assume that I won't ever make a mistake, so absolutely I have a backup plan. 



> I will not, however, set aside war with Spain because the players aren't interested in the conflict.




In the sense of a historical game, yes, I think it's important for the sense of being there that history does not alter without player intervention. In the sense of a fictional setting, though, one that's ostensibly created solely for the purpose of players, there's less of that impetus. I feel it's good to keep in mind at all times that the setting is there to serve the players, unless everyone agrees otherwise. That can mean a lot of different things, but it does tend to prompt me to think about alternate answers to "what if we held a war and nobody wanted to game through it?"

I think a setting would be damaged if the war between, let's call it Bretonnia and the Empire, suddenly died out and was never mentioned again because the players said "ugh, not what I'm here for." But if the players wanted to keep rollicking around the border more than anything, then maybe it would be time for some sort of adventure to crop up wherein they can avert the war in some fashion, or at the very least shove some NPCs into resolving it, depending on the tastes of the players. 



> Right now my biggest 'outside' influence on the campaign is Pendragon. I like the concept of characters as part of a dynasty; it fits the kind of campaign I'd like to run, and one that's well-supported by the career rules in Flashing Blades.




That fits well, and makes perfect sense. Pendragon's not quite my cup of tea — for various reasons, I'm most interested in legacies that can be transmitted in ways other than natal inheritance — but it suits the simulationist elements to a game like that quite well. 



> I've enjoyed the discussion, by the way.




So have I. I'm always interested in seeing how people run games unlike my own. Sometimes there's even stuff to steal.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 13, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Enter the well-realized NPC, the character with _character_. What are his or her values, aspirations, hopes, fears, habits and so on?




I think it's a good point that having a dynamic NPC can let you put pressure on the players even if you're a sit-back DM in scenes where there aren't NPCs pushing their own agenda.

However, in practice I find that drawing the line between me and the NPCs I roleplay is difficult. (e.g. the horror of the Mary Sue GM PC).

If every NPC that the players ever meet is saying "please save us from the spelljammers" or "I am an advance scout from the spelljammer fleet here to kill anyone who could resist our invasion," then the players are probably justified in thinking that fighting the spelljammers is part of the DM's agenda, and not just that of the NPCs being portrayed.

So having a variety of NPCs with a variety of motives is important. For me it was a big revelation to read through the Moldvay Red Box a year or two ago and see that making a random reaction roll was part of the standard procedure for any encounter. (I grew up with the Blue Box and AD&D, where this isn't as clear.) I think it leads to richer dungeon design if I have to prepare ahead of time for the possibility that the dice will say the unicorn attacks on sight and the goblins welcome the party with open arms. The advantage here is that, by being open to dice-based random results, I'm also open to whatever the players come up with. If they want to make friends with the goblins, awesome: I've already thought of a rationale for why they might work together, in the course of prepping for a favorable reaction roll. (Note that the reaction roll sets only the initial attitude; the players get the invigorating surprise of hostile "good" monsters and friendly "evil" ones without losing the chance to change their attitude through negotiation.)

I also find that the more vigorously I play an NPC, the harder it is for me to stay impersonal about their agenda and its fate. (And as a player there have been times where I felt like the DM was out to punish  me & my character for the way the party had treated a NPC that was a favorite of his). I find that random rolls are a useful disconnect mechanism here for me too: when the players had stolen something from a powerful cleric and I was thinking about "how will he revenge himself on the party," I found it slipping uncomfortably into "how will *I* get back at them?" Making a quick d6 table of possible reactions helped me remember that, like the dice, this NPC was something outside myself; and prepping the table led me to think about alternate directions, like what allies the NPC could call on to assist in his revenge, that proved to be useful even when that wasn't the option the dice chose.

How do other GMs deal with these issues of making sure that NPCs don't all reflect their own outlook and agenda, and of separating their NPCs from themselves?


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## Mark (Feb 13, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> In the sense of a fictional setting, though, one that's ostensibly created solely for the purpose of players, there's less of that impetus. I feel it's good to keep in mind at all times that the setting is there to serve the players, unless everyone agrees otherwise.





I think this is a problematically broad statement.  A setting created for the players to, through their characters, explore is not by default _there to serve the players_.


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## Gimby (Feb 13, 2010)

Mark said:


> I think this is a problematically broad statement.  A setting created for the players to, through their characters, explore is not by default _there to serve the players_.




Given that formulation, I think it probably is - its certainly not there to serve the *characters*, but if it's for the players to explore, it serves that purpose for them.  Could you clarify what you mean a little?


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## Mark (Feb 13, 2010)

Gimby said:


> Given that formulation, I think it probably is - its certainly not there to serve the *characters*, but if it's for the players to explore, it serves that purpose for them.  Could you clarify what you mean a little?





The break in verisimilitude of having a war not happen because the player characters went left instead of right on the other side of the world seems antithetical to the manner in which I am used to experiencing how homebrewers treat their settings.  If the players have their characters dawdle (or even intentionally drag their feet) and they do not get to the warring area of the world until the war is over, then so be it.  The war waiting for the player characters is a function of pre-written adventures, not settings.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 13, 2010)

Mark said:


> I think this is a problematically broad statement.  A setting created for the players to, through their characters, explore is not by default _there to serve the players_.




I would figure if you start broad, the specifics of narrowing down are left to the individual social contracts of the groups in question. Most groups will narrow it down, of course; the end result is going to be a world that is independent enough of the players that it feels real and can surprise them, but not so independent of them that the players are essentially interchangeable, and have no real ownership of the setting. There's also a lot to consider in the difference between a setting created for the sake of a home game, and a setting you're hoping to publish or otherwise make available to people you've never met, so starting broad's probably the only way to make an accurate generalization.

But I do think "the setting is there for the players" makes a better starting point (or a fallback point) to sculpt an individual social contract than does "the setting is not there for the players." If nothing else, it's an important reminder that the players matter.


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## Mark (Feb 13, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> I would figure if you start broad, the specifics of narrowing down are left to the individual social contracts of the groups in question. Most groups will narrow it down, of course; the end result is going to be a world that is independent enough of the players that it feels real and can surprise them, but not so independent of them that the players are essentially interchangeable, and have no real ownership of the setting. There's also a lot to consider in the difference between a setting created for the sake of a home game, and a setting you're hoping to publish or otherwise make available to people you've never met, so starting broad's probably the only way to make an accurate generalization.
> 
> But I do think "the setting is there for the players" makes a better starting point (or a fallback point) to sculpt an individual social contract than does "the setting is not there for the players." If nothing else, it's an important reminder that the players matter.





Players characters derive "ownership" in a setting by virtue of their actions, not through entitlement dictated by "social contracts" between players and GM/DM/referee  Otherwise, it produces games with hollow victories and rampant inconsequentialism.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 14, 2010)

Mark said:


> Players characters derive "ownership" in a setting by virtue of their actions, not through entitlement dictated by "social contracts" between players and GM/DM/referee  Otherwise, it produces games with hollow victories and rampant inconsequentialism.




"Hollow victories" and "rampant inconsequentialism" seem to me to be perfect examples of why game-based social contracts come about, given that they're subjective judgments in the first place. Deciding that the setting comes before the need of the players is another potential way to make the players' victories hollow and actions inconsequential. 

Social contracts aren't some sort of revolutionary democracy talk, they're just basic human interaction. Even an unstated "don't be a jerk, or you're out on your ear" rule is a social contract. Understanding what your players expect out of you and their understanding what you expect of them is pretty useful stuff.


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## Mark (Feb 14, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> Deciding that the setting comes before the need of the players is (. . .)





And since that is not what I advocated, either, I guess we'll just leave that strawman aside.




Barastrondo said:


> Social contracts aren't some sort of revolutionary democracy talk, they're just basic human interaction.





Social contracts that provide the kind of entitlement you suggest are what I was addressing.  Let's not broadbursh my posts in a way that marginalizes the facts.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 14, 2010)

Mark said:


> And since that is not what I advocated, either, I guess we'll just leave that strawman aside.




I didn't say it was. Didn't even mean to imply as such. The point I'm trying to make is that there's more than one way to wind up with disenfranchised players, and that the sorts of consequences you suggest are tied more to specifics of GM behavior than anything so general as the style chosen. 



> Social contracts that provide the kind of entitlement you suggest are what I was addressing.  Let's not broadbursh my posts in a way that marginalizes the facts.




Perhaps you're misreading the sort of entitlement I'm suggesting? I'm certainly not advocating the sort where hollow victories and inconsequentiality become "fact." Just maybe the sort of game you prefer not to play in or run. Which is okay!


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## Mark (Feb 14, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> The point I'm trying to make is that there's more than one way to wind up with disenfranchised players, and that the sorts of consequences you suggest are tied more to specifics of GM behavior than anything so general as the style chosen.





You're mischaracterizing players in a game such as I advocate as being disenfranchised.  It is, to the contrary, empowering to remove false victories from the gaming equation and creates an experience that cleaves closer to true satisfaction at tasks accomplished and goals achieved.




Barastrondo said:


> Perhaps you're misreading the sort of entitlement I'm suggesting? I'm certainly not advocating the sort where hollow victories and inconsequentiality become "fact." Just maybe the sort of game you prefer not to play in or run. Which is okay!





I don't believe I am misreading anything.  I see, however, that you keep reframing what I say in ways that semantically prop up your version of player entitlement as less detrimental to overall gameplay than I feel is true.  A helping hand is something you give to beginners and only temporarily, not contractually in perpetuity.  I believe that the specific suggestion you make regarding a _setting serving the players_ leads to an unsatisfactory gameplay experience in anything but beginner RPGs.


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## Piratecat (Feb 14, 2010)

Mark said:


> You're mischaracterizing players in a game such as I advocate as being disenfranchised.  It is, to the contrary, empowering to remove false victories from the gaming equation and creates an experience that cleaves closer to true satisfaction at tasks accomplished and goals achieved.



Now, I know you have the ability to express yourself incredibly clearly. This? This is not it.


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## Mark (Feb 14, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> Now, I know you have the ability to express yourself incredibly clearly. This? This is not it.





Think of it as a fortune cookie quote and add "in bed" to it if you feel that will help.


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## Piratecat (Feb 14, 2010)

Mark said:


> Think of it as a fortune cookie quote and add "in bed" to it if you feel that will help.



See? Incredibly clearly!

I'd be interested to see your posts again when they aren't couched in language designed to obfuscate. Or as a friend of mine says, "Yes, you're very smart. Now shut up."


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## Mark (Feb 14, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> See? Incredibly clearly!
> 
> I'd be interested to see your posts again when they aren't couched in language designed to obfuscate. Or as a friend of mine says, "Yes, you're very smart. Now shut up."





I fear by the time I recover you will be beyond the capacity to enjoy much more than an I.V. drip.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 14, 2010)

Mark said:


> I don't believe I am misreading anything.  I see, however, that you keep reframing what I say in ways that semantically prop up your version of player entitlement as less detrimental to overall gameplay than I feel is true.




If it's any consolation, I'm reading your posts in entirely the same fashion. So I'm pretty sure there's some form of miscommunication going on here, as that doesn't seem to be either of our intention.



> A helping hand is something you give to beginners and only temporarily, not contractually in perpetuity.




Like this. I'm not talking about a "helping hand"; I'm talking about a partnership, a mutually beneficial arrangement. Harry, please don't understand me so fast. 



> I believe that the specific suggestion you make regarding a _setting serving the players_ leads to an unsatisfactory gameplay experience in anything but beginner RPGs.




And yet, in my experience... it doesn't. When I moved back to Atlanta and offered to run games again, my table filled up fast. With grown people, veterans of the RPG industry all, some of whom have played a greater variety of RPGs than I've ever read. 

There are a couple of possible conclusions here. One is that they're all grossly dissatisfied and that they're humoring me, waiting for the day in which I start running a more fixed-world style in which the players are assumed to be participants by player character proxy alone. The other is that we play a different kind of D&D than you do, one inspired by a variety of modern styles, and yet it winds up being satisfactory for every adult involved. 

My money's on the latter. Among other things, the "different tastes exist" theorem also may provide some example for why not everyone prefers to play the same RPGs.


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## Mark (Feb 14, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> (. . .) fixed-world style (. . .)





The world I am describing is dynamic.  That's why the war doesn't wait for the players if they don't show up in time.




Barastrondo said:


> (. . .) we play a different kind of D&D than you do, one inspired by a variety of modern styles (. . .)





Fascinating.  Your insight into the types of games I play is uncanny.




Barastrondo said:


> (. . .) and yet it winds up being satisfactory for every adult involved (. . .)





Impressive.  Not sure why you emphasize "adult" rather than simply player but I am sure you must have some reason.  But getting back to your first statement . . .




Barastrondo said:


> So I'm pretty sure there's some form of miscommunication going on here, as that doesn't seem to be either of our intention.





As I said before, I don't believe I am misreading anything.


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## SteveC (Feb 14, 2010)

This thread has veered off into some, well, strange territory, bordering on "badwrongfun." From the perspective of a largely storytelling GM, sandbox style of gaming certainly isn't bad, it's just not a style I prefer anymore. There have been a number of excellent posts that point out that they're not necessarily opposite schools, and there's certainly something that I can learn from a sandbox style GM.

The most extreme example I can think of for a "storytelling" adventure is the old Dragon Lance module. It's been quite a while since I played it, but I recall pretty much every major scene being scripted out, leaving almost no room for player choice. The thing is, that was the first example of a storytelling adventure I can ever recall seeing, so I'll give it some slack by virtue of being the first. I certainly wouldn't want to play that these days!

On the other end, I'd say that modules like B1 and B2 are the most extreme examples of a sandbox style that I can think of...perhaps I'll also throw in the Isle of Dread as well. I was just looking at B1 earlier today, and to be honest, the notion of running or playing it simply bores me to tears these days. Without any sense of a larger story or world behind the adventure, going through room after room of monsters (or not, there are a lot of empty rooms involved!) would make me head for the exits in record time.

There are a lot of sandbox GMs in the thread, so let me throw out the question of what tools that a sandbox GM has can make a storytelling game better. From the other side, what storytelling elements might make a sandbox game better? I'm approaching this from the angle that one approach isn't better than another, and that there can be a mixture of styles in a single campaign. Any thoughts?


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## Mark (Feb 14, 2010)

SteveC said:


> (. . .) what storytelling elements might make a sandbox game better?





I think the point of a sandbox is for all the elements of any possible story to be available but not pieced together until the players take actions that cause a story to unfold.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 14, 2010)

Mark said:


> The world I am describing is dynamic.  That's why the war doesn't wait for the players if they don't show up in time.




Point taken. However, I don't think "dynamic" can be used to describe only that sort of game. Every game world changes and evolves, and some do so with more player input via agencies other than their characters alone. 



> Fascinating.  Your insight into the types of games I play is uncanny.




Would you like to talk about the types of games you play? I honestly wouldn't mind hearing some "this is how I do things, and these are things I feel work well" in place of the "this is not how to do things, and they won't work well." This thread does some interesting things when people exchange ideas.



> Impressive.  Not sure why you emphasize "adult" rather than simply player but I am sure you must have some reason.




Because to be frank, the repeated use of terms like "helping hands" and "beginner RPGs" is giving me the strong impression that you don't believe mature players are capable of enjoying this sort of style, or at least that you would like to project an image of not believing such. The regular doses of sarcasm can't help but emphasize that. If there's some well-concealed respect for my players and people who enjoy this sort of playstyle as fellow gamers, I apologize, but it's really not showing through.


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## LostSoul (Feb 14, 2010)

SteveC said:


> There are a lot of sandbox GMs in the thread, so let me throw out the question of what tools that a sandbox GM has can make a storytelling game better. From the other side, what storytelling elements might make a sandbox game better? I'm approaching this from the angle that one approach isn't better than another, and that there can be a mixture of styles in a single campaign. Any thoughts?




Relationship maps.

Characters who want something - and are driven to get that.  (Especially PCs.)

A setting that offers a challenge to what the characters want.

A setting that's unstable.

Player investment in the setting.

The DM has no investment in outcomes.

The DM playing NPCs to the hilt.


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## The Shaman (Feb 14, 2010)

Barastrondo said:


> I just frequently find that I need to be a proactive nudger, for reasons that vary from group to group.



I think all referees need to nudge a bit from time-to-time, but I prefer to do my nudging out-of-game.







Barastrondo said:


> If we play on a weeknight after work, people might not have the energy to come up with proactive agendas, and would rather react to external prompts.



It's been my experience that trying to resolve out-of-game issues in-game creates more problems than it solves. If the players as a group are having a hard time focusing, then I'd rather put aside the game for the night and do something else instead, like pull out a board game, or a deck of cards, or whatever.

It sounds like you are willing to go to great lengths on behalf of your players to insure that they have a good game-night experience, but I have to ask, do you ever feel like you go too far in indulging your players? Is it reasonable to ask them to maybe make the effort to rise to the occasion, instead of repeatedly shifting gears from game-night to game-night?







Barastrondo said:


> If we use bizarre homebrew settings (like my current Gormenghast/Labyrinth/Poe mashup), they frequently prefer that I introduce them to the setting with actively giving them things to react to. It lets them become familiar with the setting through play, without having to do quite much reading up beforehand to see what is likely to fit, and is a little less work than their defining the setting as they go.



I'll be honest, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "introducing them to the setting by giving them things to react to," so I'm not quite sure what to make of this.

On a more general note, doesn't every referee introduce the setting in play to some degree? I mean, I've introduced new gamers to the Third Imperium for _Traveller_, a sprawling sandbox setting, and I spent no more than seven or eight minutes before character creation describing the foundational conceits and another few minutes describing the sector where play would begin - the rest was introduced as needed. For _Le Ballet de l'Acier_, a historical setting, the players don't need to read Mousnier's two-volume history of the institutions of _Ancien Regime_ France to get started - they just need to know at the outset, "Paris, 1625, _The Three Musketeers_ - go!" and the detail gets added as the game progresses.







Barastrondo said:


> Actually, because I exclusively homebrew, I spend a lot of time working out the details of a setting as I go. I'm running the aforementioned strange baroque city game at the moment, as well as something set in a more Renaissance Italy-inspired fantasy country, and neither of them are settings I've exhaustively detailed ahead of time. So it's not time to figure out a city until the players absolutely are headed there — until then, I simply have a list of notes to work from. My players can guess (and my wife certainly knows) that I don't have everything pre-prepared, but it _is_ all ready for them, if that makes sense.
> 
> I think it wouldn't work for the experience you are interested in; there would be the meta-knowledge that the world is not already fully formed. If that meta-knowledge doesn't bother you, though (as it doesn't for my friends), then there's still the experience of having the world spread out before you in each direction you go, and if a few details are ad-libbed while others have been set for years, it doesn't detract too much from the overall fun of the game.



Makes perfect sense, but if you think that's something different from the way a sandbox referee prepares, then I believe that's a misapprehension.

No matter how much time I have to prep, there is no way I can detail every chateau and village in France, or every hectare of every planet in the Third Imperium, or what-have-you. Large sections of my settings perforce must remain broadly defined, but what I do know is enough to improvise in such a way as to maintain the integrity and verisimilitude of the setting as we play. For example, sometimes all I've got is a sentence or even just a few words, like my notes for the province of Auvergne in France ("Medieval Appalachia," reflecting the fact that Auvergnats tend to be isolated and rustic), but it's enough on which to build as the need arises.



Barastrondo said:


> The real lesson, of course, is that when I'm setting conflicts into motion (such as NPCs preying on other NPCs in a way that PCs may notice and get involved in), I'm careful to pick those that I can guess my players are going to enjoy.



For me that's part of the pitch before the game even starts: if we're playing 'space truckers' of the Third Imperium, or swashbucklers in the France of Dumas and Sabatini and Weyman, the kinds of conflicts likely to arise in the course of the game should be generally understood from the outset, so there is at least some measure of tacit acceptance of what may come down the track after the game begins.


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## The Shaman (Feb 14, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Enter the well-realized NPC, the character with _character_. What are his or her values, aspirations, hopes, fears, habits and so on? The fuller one's grasp of those, the easier it is to _deduce_ the character's behavior in response to _any_ circumstances. No longer is it necessary to cover all possibilities by "brute force" methods.



Yup.

I don't prepare plots. I assess consequences that arise from the players' choices and the adventurers' actions.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Feb 14, 2010)

LostSoul said:


> Relationship maps.
> 
> Characters who want something - and are driven to get that.  (Especially PCs.)
> 
> ...




LostSoul, are you answering the question "what sandbox techniques could contribute to a storytelling DM's toolkit" or visa versa? I think it's revealing that I often can't be sure either way!

Here are some techniques that I've learned use in my current sandbox game that I think weren't part of my arsenal before:

- Dice-based unpredictability. Here I mean random rolls that shape the outcomes of all kinds of events and reactions, not just combat, and are largely independent of the characters' abilities (i.e., old-school reaction tables where the probabilities aren't determined by the predictable Diplomacy bonus of the party's skill-monkey). I can't say how much this contributes to the player's experience, although hopefully it creates a live-wire sense of a game in which anything can happen. What I know for sure is that it's very exciting for me to feel like I'm a co-discoverer of what happens, where I'm frequently surprised and have the same experience that the players do of piecing together meaning from scattered clues (what does it mean that there's a lammasu wandering through this dungeon level?) and solving problems (ah, I can make sense of that if it's here to purify the corrupted fountain).

- Avoidance is fun. In the city adventure I ran last night, one of the players apologized afterwards for keeping a tight rein on his fellow party members and keeping them from biting on any of the many tempting hooks I (and the dice) dangled before them, because he knew they'd lead to trouble and they were there to get paid. I thought that was awesome! Each time the players decided not to deal with something now, it built up a picture of the city in their minds as a place where interesting things were going on all the time, built tension as they suffered insults for now and added people to their hit list for later, etc. And the climax of the session was being in the tower of a lich they'd accidentally killed, suffering an exquisite dilemma between their greed and their fear of hideous traps, ending in a cathartic running away burdened with their loot. I think the sandbox techniques that make the things you avoid dealing with or run away from as exciting as the ones you do are first, the demonstration that as a GM you don't expect the players to deal with any particular set of things you put out there (so that they know the fun doesn't depend on biting on the hooks) and second, the presence of dangers that are not tied to the player's capabilities (so that prior experience demonstrates the virtue of running away, but also that sometimes the PCs are able to overcome something the GM didn't think they could - this last is important so that a seemingly impossible threat is a gamble, not a tool the GM uses to push them around).

In stuff linked over here I talk about Graham Walmsley's book _Play Unsafe_, about improv techniques and gaming; I think those are very useful for both sandboxes and storytelling of the non-Dragonlance kind we're talking about here where responsiveness to player choice is key.


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## Barastrondo (Feb 14, 2010)

The Shaman said:


> It sounds like you are willing to go to great lengths on behalf of your players to insure that they have a good game-night experience, but I have to ask, do you ever feel like you go too far in indulging your players? Is it reasonable to ask them to maybe make the effort to rise to the occasion, instead of repeatedly shifting gears from game-night to game-night?




I don't feel that way very often; if I did, I admit it would be time to reassess how comfortable I was advocating the style (at least as it works for me). Sometimes I do run into mental blocks with what a player would like to do and what I think makes sense, and those are reconciled away from the table; I'm still working with my wife on one particular stumbling block for our private Hollowfaust-meets-Pride-and-Prejudice game. Usually, what players want to do requires fairly little readjustment, particularly in settings that are built as we go. If conflicts do arise, I have to ask myself whether I'm the unreasonable one, though. Sometimes I am.



> I'll be honest, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "introducing them to the setting by giving them things to react to," so I'm not quite sure what to make of this.




Usually it's starting with one major prod to get them reacting to as a group: grisly murders on the outskirts of the village, a stolen body, things of that nature. An event to expedite getting the players together and moving as one.

Maybe the example of how I started a very recent game would help? 

When I got my list of players, I sent a list of potential game pitches around, and gradually they voted it down to "Tanglestone: a sprawling, labyrinthine city mostly empty, isolated from the rest of the world, populated by strange and baroque people who have never seen the Outside." My notes on the city were a couple of pages of handwritten ideas at that point. Then players proposed characters, and I talked with them about how to make them fit just so. Some of their ideas were different than what I'd originally envisioned for the city — one player picked an elf monk, for instance, and I had no previous plans for elves to appear as a race, or for a monastic order. But I adjusted the idea of the city accordingly, planting a small faction of elves into an orchard district and proposing a monastery set atop the spires of the immense cathedral structure that held many temples. The same happened when another player picked an assassin: a bit of conversation, and then we determined that one-half of the law enforcement of the city, so to speak, would be the guild-clan of the Night Sweepers, a somewhat sinister organization that keeps the streets clean and safe at night. 

Now, the player of the librarian in the game is quite proactive, and handed me a long list of potential story hooks for his character: teaching literacy to other guild-clans, questing for long-lost books, rising floodwaters in the library basement imperiling the books, and so on. Some were goals that the character would actively pursue, but others were things I would stage that he'd like to react to. The player of the monk, on the other hand, is perfectly happy reacting to things of my choosing — he's a manager who can spend from 9:30-4:30 in meetings chasing important agendas on game day, so he tends to like letting other people (like me) do most of the active scheming for a change.

To begin the game, I selected "rising floodwaters" from the librarian player's list: I figured out a cause for it (picking a potential antagonist from one of those pages of notes: "filth king?"), added the complication that it was also a problem in the catacombs, and then let the players investigate. So there's an example of players shaping a plot (but not a script) in a way other than in-character actions. 



> On a more general note, doesn't every referee introduce the setting in play to some degree? I mean, I've introduced new gamers to the Third Imperium for _Traveller_, a sprawling sandbox setting, and I spent no more than seven or eight minutes before character creation describing the foundational conceits and another few minutes describing the sector where play would begin - the rest was introduced as needed. For _Le Ballet de l'Acier_, a historical setting, the players don't need to read Mousnier's two-volume history of the institutions of _Ancien Regime_ France to get started - they just need to know at the outset, "Paris, 1625, _The Three Musketeers_ - go!" and the detail gets added as the game progresses.




Yes indeed. So here's another potential example of clarification. When I'm adding details to a setting, sometimes they're ad-libbed answers to a character's questions, same as you describe. "Is there a glassblower in the Crafter Block?" "There'd have to be. Give me a second..."

Sometimes, though, they're reactions to character suggestions. "It would be awesome if I could find a work on this whole cults-in-the-noble houses that laid out which houses were prosecutors, which ones were eliminated, things like that." "That sounds good. (I hadn't thought about the prosecutors being from within the noble houses, but that's actually a better suggestion; internecine strife would introduce the theme of rot from within more solidly, and it suggests that at least one of the prosecutor houses might have something to hide.) Yes, you do find a work of that nature."

Bear in mind that the latter approach is still subject to judicial review: a player proposes a new plot twist, and the GM makes sure that incorporating that suggestion doesn't give the player characters an easy path over adversity. It may be the GM says "That's an interesting idea" but holds to the original vision of how the world would appear/react more often than he adapts the player suggestion. But I'm assuming that the distinction is that it's done at all. 

The reason I like storytelling elements in play is that they tend to enable genre convention and theme as major participants. In the Tanglestone game, for instance, running with the player's suggestion actually gave us more opportunity to steep in the theme of gradual decay and the walls beginning to crumble. There's more dry rot and wormwood. Verisimilitude is measured a bit differently; though the world is more malleable to player desires than might be realistic, it winds up feeling more appropriate, more thematic. Their suggestions nudge the world closer to as they see it.

Does that make some measure of sense? 



> No matter how much time I have to prep, there is no way I can detail every chateau and village in France, or every hectare of every planet in the Third Imperium, or what-have-you. Large sections of my settings perforce must remain broadly defined, but what I do know is enough to improvise in such a way as to maintain the integrity and verisimilitude of the setting as we play. For example, sometimes all I've got is a sentence or even just a few words, like my notes for the province of Auvergne in France ("Medieval Appalachia," reflecting the fact that Auvergnats tend to be isolated and rustic), but it's enough on which to build as the need arises.




Oh yeah, absolutely. I think it may simply be the methodology by which the inchoate portions of the game take form — and the precise things you're trying to simulate, be it theme, dramatic convention or an alternate reality — that distinguish the two styles. 

(And I'm from Southern Appalachia; it tickles me to consider a French translation of "you'uns.")



> For me that's part of the pitch before the game even starts: if we're playing 'space truckers' of the Third Imperium, or swashbucklers in the France of Dumas and Sabatini and Weyman, the kinds of conflicts likely to arise in the course of the game should be generally understood from the outset, so there is at least some measure of tacit acceptance of what may come down the track after the game begins.




I'm generally not so well-prepared as to figure out all my potential conflicts ahead of time. "Wicked fae abducting children" might occur to me when the game's in motion, only for me to find out that a given player is not really cool with too much children-as-exclusive-targets dread. 

While I can give the players a general precis of what they might be doing, their suggestions might change my mind, and new things might occur to me as the setting is built over the course of play. So in case something crops up that wasn't mentioned in the original discussion, I have my guiding principle to adhere to.


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## Janx (Feb 16, 2010)

merricb posted this Gary quote in another thread.  I think it has some relevance here:

Gary Gygax, Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide (page 119)
========================================
While it might seem high unlikely to those who have not been involved in fantasy adventure gaming for an extended period of time, after the flush of excitement wears off - perhaps a few months or a year, depending on the intensity of play - some participants will become bored and move to other gaming forms, returning to your campaign only occasionally. Shortly thereafter even your most dedicated players will occasionally find that dungeon levels and wilderness castles grow stale, regardless of subtle differences and unusual challenges. It is possible, however, for you to devise a campaign which will have a very minimal amount of participant attrition and enthusast ennui, andit is not particularly difficult to do so.

As has been mentioned already, the game must be neither too difficult to survive nor so easy as to offer little excitement or challenge. There must be always something desirable to gain, something important to lose, and the chance of having either happen. Furthermore there must be some purpose to it all. There must be some backdrop against which adventures are carried out, and no matter how tenuous the strands, some web which connects the evil and good, the opposing powers, the rival states and various peoples. This need not be evident at first, but as play continues, hints should be given to players, and their characters should become involved in the interaction and struggle between these vaster entities. Thus, characters begin as less than pawns, but as they progress in expertise, each eventually realizes that he or she is a meaningful, if lowly, piece in the cosmic game being conducted. When this occurs, players then have a dual purpose to their play, for not only will their player characters and henchmen gain levels of experience, but their actions have meaning above and beyond that of personal aggrandizement.

========================================

I started D&D in 2e by buying the books and putting together a group.   No outside influence (I didn't learn the game or style from anybody else).

What Gary says doesn't strike me as contradictory to the way I play.  To me, it hints at the idea that what the players are doing should be part of something bigger than just killing things and taking their stuff.


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## Mark (Feb 22, 2010)

Janx said:


> I started D&D in 2e by buying the books and putting together a group.   No outside influence (I didn't learn the game or style from anybody else).





Did that include getting Dragon magazine?  That probably influenced a lot of DMs who didn't have other DMs around to show them the ropes.


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## Janx (Feb 22, 2010)

Mark said:


> Did that include getting Dragon magazine?  That probably influenced a lot of DMs who didn't have other DMs around to show them the ropes.




I started getting Dragon when I went to college, 2 years later, when my "interpretation" of D&D was already set.

Now, something to couch all this in, when I say "no outside influences", which is nearly impossible, I mean as in not learning the ropes from another player (and their style) or by reading lots of D&D game books or adventure modules (we never use them).

I did read various TSR novels (greyhawk and FR novels, I didn't read Dragonlance until the big 3 novel compilations came out).

I was also into Battletech/Mechwarrior and ShadowRun.  In many ways, they were more analogous to the story-style of play.  We didn't actually play much of those games, but the concepts of how a game was supposed to be planned.

To my eye, that's how all the games of that era were "meant" to be played.  My interpretation came from reading the books, as that's all I had.  Confirmation came from playing the game with the group of players we built up, and the fact that kept playing.  My gaming group is still going, since 1990.

I was also programming games and DMing tools back then.  Having played games like Akalabeth and text adventures, a plain dungeon crawl was something a computer could do.  To me, the value of D&D was that a human GM could tell rich stories with believable NPCs and human interpretation of the player's choices giving limitless options without the tedium.  As Nethack demonstrates, you can write code to do a lot for a dungeon crawl.  Therefore, the human is needed for the fuzzy stuff.


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## sellars (Feb 23, 2010)

Thanks a lot! I really enjoyed that read!



TarionzCousin said:


> FYI, Matthew Finch's "A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming" is a great resource and fun to read.
> 
> Bonus: it's free to download.


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