Players: it's your responsibility to carry a story.

[Kzach]

Firstly, let's get some DM'ing credentials out of the way to qualify what I'm about to say.

I've been DM'ing D&D games since I was thirteen. The moment I picked up the PHB, the very next thing I did was pick up a DMG, and the very next thing after that, was DM a game. I have DM'd for literally hundreds of people. Primarily this has been due to moving a lot. The last time I moved house was the 42nd time I've moved in my life.

Other issues, of course, crop up. Personality conflicts, system preferences, girlfriends, boyfriends, life, etc. Point is, I get a group together and inevitably something happens and I start looking for more people or a new group. I have also DM'd a fair bit for Living games, online and off.

In this time I've learned a lot of things. One of those things is that the onus is always put on the DM to provide the story and keep everything running smoothly. I, however, have come to a different conclusion. IMO, the onus should be on the players.

Inevitably what I find is that even the most die-hard roleplayer who will scream black and blue that they are the bestest roleplayer evar, fails to follow clues, chase leads, investigate possibilities, ask questions of NPC's. In most cases, what they're looking for, is a railroad. They won't admit that, to the group or to themselves, but the fact is, they don't initiate, they follow.

I've done this experiment too many times to count where I've told the group either one or the other, ie. I've said, "Go where you want, do what you want, but the onus is on you to find adventure," and everyone is like, "Yay! Awesome!" and we start the game and sit in a tavern for three hours roleplaying hitting on the barmaids, drinking themselves silly, and provoking fights. Usually this goes on until I finally break and paint a flashing neon sign that says, "Adventure, this way!"

Other times I've said, "Ok, I'm going to railroad you through the plot, is everyone ok with that?" and I get, "Sure, will speed things up!" and then people bitch, moan, whinge and complain about not being able to go where they want and do what they want.

The best solution, I've found, is to simply lie. Tell them it's a sandbox, and then railroad them down a set path. By providing the 'illusion' of choice, everyone's happy. The game continues at a good pace, nobody gets bored or frustrated, and nobody complains about being spoon-fed the plot.

I feel that this situation has developed because of an expectation for the DM to be all and end all. Everyone blames the DM if a game runs badly, or is boring, but do they ever blame themselves?

Part of the reason I'm mentioning this is because recently I have vowed not to DM. A life-long buddy of mine and I met through D&D, and in the last 18 years, we can count the number of times we've both been players in a game together. 90% of the time, I'm DM'ing, the other 10% he's DM'ing. So I said to Hell with it, and now every group I look for, I look as a player, not a DM.

It's here that I've noticed how little people will initiate adventure or follow the DM's clues. Unless they're patently obvious railroads. Players tend to go off on tangents or, and this is what I find really bizarre, purposefully ignore the leads. And it's not like they're doing anything interesting instead. Rolling to seduce the barmaid got boring for me when I was fourteen and no longer initiates giggles.

So I often find myself taking up the mantle of party leader and running with whatever clues the DM has put in front of me. And when there's nothing obvious, I find I am the only one to suggest or initiate avenues of exploration or investigation to find out where to go and what to do.

This, therefore, is a callout to all players. It is not the responsibility of the DM to make a game fun. It's everyone's responsibility at the table. If a game is boring, then perhaps you should look to yourself as a player and contributor to that boredom, instead of placing blame on the one person who has the least control over what happens in the game.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

It's here that I've noticed how little people will initiate adventure or follow the DM's clues. Unless they're patently obvious railroads. Players tend to go off on tangents or, and this is what I find really bizarre, purposefully ignore the leads. And it's not like they're doing anything interesting instead. Rolling to seduce the barmaid got boring for me when I was fourteen and no longer initiates giggles.

I come to a table to roll lots of dice, and enjoy a good story. If I'm not getting a story, I can pretty much deal for a little while if I'm rolling lots of dice in combats.

If I'm not getting to roll dice, I can pretty much deal for a little while if I'm part of an enthralling story.

If I get neither, or even a pittance, then I'm not having fun and I'm miserable.

Like you, I had a long bout on behind the DM screen. Even further I was a LG regional admin, developing plots, authoring mods, then running them at conventions. That experience has fundamentally changed me as a player. I have found myself now coming to the table eagerly wanting to help the DM out keep things moving along.

I'm sure some groups, DMs and players both, totally enjoy the all night BS sessions of roleplaying shopping for groceries, or roleplaying a tavern, or roleplaying a night trying to hook up with everything that moves. Nowadays, anything more than a couple minutes spent on that and I'm getting itchy. Not badwrongfun, but it ain't fun for me.

 

[Greg K]

I've been lucky. with my players For fantasy, I can create the setting stuff, the initial adventure hook, and the players take the game in their own direction. Occassionally, I throw in some side adventures and hooks and things for continuity, but they do all kinds of crazy stuff- set out to find a dryad to get the uptight druid "laid", help the barbarian gain status in his clan, start a revolution....

For more modern stuff and supers, yeah, I have to feed them adventures, but still they take off and turn them upside down with the rp. For example, on the first mission of a monster hunter game, two of the characters worked for a government agency. One was a very obese computer nerd and tended to stay in the van. While searching for a creature kidnapping kids, they encountered the third PC a college student, who runs a "wall of wierd". The drugged the student and hid him in the van so he wouldn't interfere. Then, the student came to as they combat guy threw a bag with a child sized goblin tied up inside. The player had the student go off on the two agents for kidnapping kids and accusing the obese character of eating them (refering to the agent as the"Whale" which stuck). The whole table was in stiches and the nickname stuck.
After the second session, the player of "Whale" asked to have an adventure where he would have to come out of the van to meet a girl he only new online. He rp'd the insecurity of meeting her and the players ran with it.

 

[HoboGod]

Ehhhhh, I'll agree to some extent. Sandbox, D&D? HA! That'll be the day. I give them sandboxes when they enter trading posts. Go bother random NPCs for chump change.

As for who's responsibility is it to carry the story? Players can't be trusted to ask NPCs questions regarding the details of "how do we get there?" much less asking each other "what are we doing, today?" The players often think there's one player or another leading the group. The DM ALWAYS leads the group.

 

[Derulbaskul]

Players suck.

I feel better now. OK, that statement is slightly tongue-in-cheek but my experience is much the same as Kzach's (except I haven't moved house 42 times): I do find players to be horribly lazy.

Like Kzach I now create the illusion of choice. For all intents and purposes they're in a sandbox but the reality is that they are chugging along a railroad. All that matters is that they think they are making choices.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I like to present not so much a railroad as an interchange. There are several trains leaving the station, and the PCs can choose which train or trains they want to catch.

All the trains are going to reach some destination or another at some point in the future, and are likely to have consequences which set off other future trains.

In other words, in a campaign I don't present players with THE adventure, as much as laying the seeds of a number of adventures.

Actually, that isn't entirely true. I normally give the illusion of a sandbox but when the rumours are all about goblin attacks in the village to the north, it is pretty obvious what the neophyte adventurers can go and do!

I've know one DM who pretty much always ran pure sandbox games, and I found them incredibly boring - because he didn't put much thought into anything up front, we would come up with an idea, go somewhere, have some on the fly combats without any real impact, and move on. Even at high levels, it was just a case of wandering around and beating people up. Hugely unsatisfying. So as a player - give me a railroad every day - especially if it is a railroad to awesometown (to paraphrase Morrus's sig)

Cheers

 

[Sunseeker]

Lets get my credentials out of the way, I am mostly a player, and I am very irregular at that, I have dmed a few times, enough to know the ropes and enjoy it when I do, but not enough to call myself a professional.

That said, my experience has taught me one important fact: my experience and your experience are not absolutes, no matter how much we've played or now many games we've ran.

I'll be frank, I usually play a character who is a straight-forward kind of person, his interests are first and foremost, his/her own, if adventure avails itsself, great, if not, then drinking and hitting on barmaids is a great and honorable past-time. I play this way because this is who I am, and who I am is the role I am most capable of. If someone wants to play a treasure-hungry character but fails to be treasure-hungry, that is their failure, but at the same time, it is also a failure on the part of the DM to dangle that lure of treasure in front of them.

Sand-boxes are great for adventuring, but they're horrible for stories. It is ENTIRELY the DM's job to design and frame a story, even if it's just creating a lot of adventures that could be discovered through an initial sandbox. It is the job of the players to desire to find adventure, but not to create it.

It's a two-way street, always has been, always will be, DM creates the basic framework for stories, adventures, and so on, pushes the players out of their comfort zone, and then the players fill in the details, all with a helping hand from the DM now and then.

The short story is: what people want is a well-fleshed out railroad, Nobody wants a one-way street, but neither do they want a 10-lane freeway. It is the responsibility of EVERYONE to make the game fun, DM and players. If a DM puts the responsibility on the players, the natural question is of the DM's necessity, if the players put it all on the DM, then the question is of the player's necessity.

Two-way street, end of story.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Good thread.

Players tend to go off on tangents or, and this is what I find really bizarre, purposefully ignore the leads. And it's not like they're doing anything interesting instead.

I used to do that about ten years ago. It was wrong, I know that now.

I don't think there's any need for a massive sandbox with dozens and dozens of adventure opportunities. A half-dozen or so, tops, should be fine for each session.

It's right, I think, that players follow the GM's lead, waiting for him to initiate with an adventure hook. The GM will, probably, have a limited amount of prepared adventure material. The players, having turned up to a session, presumably want to interact with that material. So it makes sense to wait for the GM to signpost it. Otherwise you run the risk of missing the adventure. (Otoh, the most enjoyable moments always seem to be improvised, like the 'Whale' name mentioned above.)

Players want to be fed at least one adventure hook. But they don't want to feel forced to follow the GM's plot, ie railroaded. My feeling is that the adventure has a whole does have to be 'forced' on the players, but what they do with that adventure is up to them, to a large extent. Sometimes it just won't work. For example siding with the bandits against the villagers in a Magnificent Seven setup would make the game too easy. Tho the GM could maybe improv some other, opposing heroes.

Some adventure hooks are themselves too forced, too railroady. The start of G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, for example, where the PCs will get beheaded if they don't defeat the giants. Yes, if there's only one hook then the players do have to follow it. But you don't have to shove the lack of freedom in the players' faces. At least have the pretence of a sandbox.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I've know one DM who pretty much always ran pure sandbox games, and I found them incredibly boring - because he didn't put much thought into anything up front, we would come up with an idea, go somewhere, have some on the fly combats without any real impact, and move on. Even at high levels, it was just a case of wandering around and beating people up. Hugely unsatisfying. So as a player - give me a railroad every day - especially if it is a railroad to awesometown (to paraphrase Morrus's sig)

I've played in a zero prep sandbox that worked. It was Rifts. We had nothing to do so resorted to petty banditry and our schemes always went abominably awry. Good fun.

But yeah, generally speaking, a sandbox needs adventures and those adventures need hooks so the players can find the fun.

If the PCs are only presented with one hook then a sandbox, with non-self starting players, will be identical to a non-sandbox. Say the PCs are sitting in a tavern, waiting for something to do, and they hear a rumour about a great treasure in nearby ruins. Obvious adventure. But those PCs might be in a sandbox with lots of other, unhooked adventures nearby, or the ruins might be all the GM has prepped. The point is, if the players always follow the hook then for all intents and purposes they are the same.

 

[Anselyn]

... the most die-hard roleplayer who will scream black and blue that they are the bestest roleplayer evar, ...
[...]

we start the game and sit in a tavern for three hours roleplaying hitting on the barmaids, drinking themselves silly, and provoking fights.

The second point does not contradict the first.

If the players are having fun with their characters as they sit chatting in character - perhaps developing the inter-character relations - and having fun being in the world then that's roleplaying. It's also fun that you're facilitating by running the NPCs in the tavern and the the bar room brawl. So - take some credit where it's due.

If your concept of roleplaying is that they have to go and kill stuff/get clues then perhaps that should be part of the initial campaign briefing. But - what you're describing above is roleplaying.