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<blockquote data-quote="pming" data-source="post: 7755357" data-attributes="member: 45197"><p>Hiya!</p><p></p><p>...and from the other side of the screen...</p><p></p><p></p><p>As a DM, if my players want something, they need to go after it. I don't want a Player to tell me OOC that his character wants to find a girlfriend and then expect me to 'make it happen'. If a Player wants to get his PC into a family, with a wife, kids, a pair of dogs, and a small farm just outside town...it's not up to me to make sure all the stars align so that they can find a perfect wife, have perfect children, have perfectly loyal and trained dogs, and have a perfect farm for just the amount of money that he has saved up via adventuring.</p><p></p><p>Don't get me wrong. I, as a DM, am not going to go the opposite either (re: have him get screwed by a gold digger, find out he's infertile, etc). I'm going to run the world as the world. As a Player it is up to him to put in the PC effort to find out a good place to "pick up chicks", so to speak, learn about raising dogs, check out the area he's interested in buying or building a farm, how to actually live on a farm, etc. </p><p></p><p>As for a PC Party, well-balanced is best. Also, Good alignment for everyone also helps greatly (you'd be surprised how much the parties capabilities and planning change when everyone is LG, NG with maybe a single CG). But that's not for me to decide. That's on the Players. As a DM, the "world at large and everything in it" doesn't give two flying harpies about the PC's and their "goals" or "desires". This means that I, as a DM, also need to at least put on the poker-face of "I don't care either". Of course, I do care...sometimes I'm happy to see a PC bite it due to them just being, well, disruptive d-bags. Other times I'm saddened to see a PC die. Mostly I'm just a bit disappointing I don't get to see what that PC would have become.</p><p></p><p>As a DM who is "neutral", like me (generally), I actually find that when the Players <em>don't</em> see me as a "cooperator" in the sense described in the OP, that they will talk about things "as a party" outside of the game a bit more. They know that I pay attention to get a vibe of what direction they are heading, desire wise, in the game. If they keep talking a lot about getting out of the city and checking out that spot on the map called "The Cave of Whispers"...I know to brush up on my underground survival notes and that area in particular. The only time we all talk "as a collective group, everyone deciding equally" is when we are at session 0 of something. We discuss what 'focus' we want...intrigue, exploration, big wars/battles, undead-focused, underground dungeon delving, etc. But after that...I cut them loose in the world and off they go!</p><p></p><p>When I, as DM, get a "rush" from seeing the Players excited for whatever reason...be it a series of crazy rolls, or a political situation they got themselves into where consequences for failure are significant, or maybe two PC's have both decided they want to woo the same NPC, etc... it's not because I "listened to what they wanted and then set it up to come about". From the DM side of things...it's not a surprise. I'm not going to feel that same level of "excitement" if I knew this 'scene' was coming up. Like trying to watch a murder mystery twice. Once by yourself...and then once with your friends. Sure, it's cool to know when to watch their faces for the "big twist", but it, to me at least, is infinitely more meaningful when I see it at the same time my friends do and we all look at each other with a gobsmacked stare and say "....No...effing...WAY....!" O_O The ONLY way I've gotten that is when I specifically <em>don't </em>plan/decide/steer the game towards that goal/encounter/reveal. </p><p></p><p>So, to sum up, where I sit as a DM, working with and listening to your players is good for "broad stroke" campaign decisions when doing prep work for the next session. If they seem interested in getting some treasure via dungeon bashing...I know to get maps drawn, write up some wandering monster charts for various areas around where the PC's are currently at in the world, maybe come up with a couple "weird things going on" that NPCs can relate over a tankard of brew, that sort of thing. I set the stages, they choose which one interests them. Or, often enough, they'll do a 180 and say "Hey! We're at a port town, right? Lets go be pirates!". But that's ok. Because I have it covered. I have notes on ship names, types, cost to buy or pay for passage, rumors about buried treasure, lost islands, and horrible sea monsters. Why do I have that? Because I never know exactly what the Players will decide and therefor need at least some guidelines to "everything around the PC's". If all I did was focus on "working with the players" to build/create a custom-tailored session specifically for their PC's goals and desires, well, I wouldn't be surprised. They wouldn't be surprised. Nobody would be surprised. We all would "see it coming" at least a session or two away. It wouldn't' be "...no...effing...WAY...!", and instead it would be "...Oh...right...guess that's Bill's que...", and then Bill would have to, hmm... "fake role-play?" his characters surprise and alarm at the sudden unexpected arrival of the Spanish inquisition. The reality being that something like this sudden arrival was going to happen at some point.</p><p></p><p>I'm honestly not trying to poo-poo the OP's idea. As she said...play the game that makes you happy. And that is so-o true! Could I run a game like the OP and enjoy it? Yes. Absolutely. In fact, I HAVE ran games like that (but not for D&D; one was for Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Set ["FASERIP"] and one was for some other game I can't remember...they were both a LONG time ago...decades...). But, for me and my players at least, we discovered that we enjoyed the "random and unplanned" RP'ing surprises and twists and turns and all that so much more when they came about, well, organically and unexpectedly. You only get that if, as DM, you divorce yourself from the "co-operative" DM'ing style and move more into the "neutral and uncaring" DM'ing style. At least that's the only way I've been able to be truly surprised by some turn of RP'ing and PC interaction events.</p><p></p><p>YMMV.</p><p></p><p>^_^</p><p></p><p>Paul L. Ming</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pming, post: 7755357, member: 45197"] Hiya! ...and from the other side of the screen... As a DM, if my players want something, they need to go after it. I don't want a Player to tell me OOC that his character wants to find a girlfriend and then expect me to 'make it happen'. If a Player wants to get his PC into a family, with a wife, kids, a pair of dogs, and a small farm just outside town...it's not up to me to make sure all the stars align so that they can find a perfect wife, have perfect children, have perfectly loyal and trained dogs, and have a perfect farm for just the amount of money that he has saved up via adventuring. Don't get me wrong. I, as a DM, am not going to go the opposite either (re: have him get screwed by a gold digger, find out he's infertile, etc). I'm going to run the world as the world. As a Player it is up to him to put in the PC effort to find out a good place to "pick up chicks", so to speak, learn about raising dogs, check out the area he's interested in buying or building a farm, how to actually live on a farm, etc. As for a PC Party, well-balanced is best. Also, Good alignment for everyone also helps greatly (you'd be surprised how much the parties capabilities and planning change when everyone is LG, NG with maybe a single CG). But that's not for me to decide. That's on the Players. As a DM, the "world at large and everything in it" doesn't give two flying harpies about the PC's and their "goals" or "desires". This means that I, as a DM, also need to at least put on the poker-face of "I don't care either". Of course, I do care...sometimes I'm happy to see a PC bite it due to them just being, well, disruptive d-bags. Other times I'm saddened to see a PC die. Mostly I'm just a bit disappointing I don't get to see what that PC would have become. As a DM who is "neutral", like me (generally), I actually find that when the Players [I]don't[/I] see me as a "cooperator" in the sense described in the OP, that they will talk about things "as a party" outside of the game a bit more. They know that I pay attention to get a vibe of what direction they are heading, desire wise, in the game. If they keep talking a lot about getting out of the city and checking out that spot on the map called "The Cave of Whispers"...I know to brush up on my underground survival notes and that area in particular. The only time we all talk "as a collective group, everyone deciding equally" is when we are at session 0 of something. We discuss what 'focus' we want...intrigue, exploration, big wars/battles, undead-focused, underground dungeon delving, etc. But after that...I cut them loose in the world and off they go! When I, as DM, get a "rush" from seeing the Players excited for whatever reason...be it a series of crazy rolls, or a political situation they got themselves into where consequences for failure are significant, or maybe two PC's have both decided they want to woo the same NPC, etc... it's not because I "listened to what they wanted and then set it up to come about". From the DM side of things...it's not a surprise. I'm not going to feel that same level of "excitement" if I knew this 'scene' was coming up. Like trying to watch a murder mystery twice. Once by yourself...and then once with your friends. Sure, it's cool to know when to watch their faces for the "big twist", but it, to me at least, is infinitely more meaningful when I see it at the same time my friends do and we all look at each other with a gobsmacked stare and say "....No...effing...WAY....!" O_O The ONLY way I've gotten that is when I specifically [I]don't [/I]plan/decide/steer the game towards that goal/encounter/reveal. So, to sum up, where I sit as a DM, working with and listening to your players is good for "broad stroke" campaign decisions when doing prep work for the next session. If they seem interested in getting some treasure via dungeon bashing...I know to get maps drawn, write up some wandering monster charts for various areas around where the PC's are currently at in the world, maybe come up with a couple "weird things going on" that NPCs can relate over a tankard of brew, that sort of thing. I set the stages, they choose which one interests them. Or, often enough, they'll do a 180 and say "Hey! We're at a port town, right? Lets go be pirates!". But that's ok. Because I have it covered. I have notes on ship names, types, cost to buy or pay for passage, rumors about buried treasure, lost islands, and horrible sea monsters. Why do I have that? Because I never know exactly what the Players will decide and therefor need at least some guidelines to "everything around the PC's". If all I did was focus on "working with the players" to build/create a custom-tailored session specifically for their PC's goals and desires, well, I wouldn't be surprised. They wouldn't be surprised. Nobody would be surprised. We all would "see it coming" at least a session or two away. It wouldn't' be "...no...effing...WAY...!", and instead it would be "...Oh...right...guess that's Bill's que...", and then Bill would have to, hmm... "fake role-play?" his characters surprise and alarm at the sudden unexpected arrival of the Spanish inquisition. The reality being that something like this sudden arrival was going to happen at some point. I'm honestly not trying to poo-poo the OP's idea. As she said...play the game that makes you happy. And that is so-o true! Could I run a game like the OP and enjoy it? Yes. Absolutely. In fact, I HAVE ran games like that (but not for D&D; one was for Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Set ["FASERIP"] and one was for some other game I can't remember...they were both a LONG time ago...decades...). But, for me and my players at least, we discovered that we enjoyed the "random and unplanned" RP'ing surprises and twists and turns and all that so much more when they came about, well, organically and unexpectedly. You only get that if, as DM, you divorce yourself from the "co-operative" DM'ing style and move more into the "neutral and uncaring" DM'ing style. At least that's the only way I've been able to be truly surprised by some turn of RP'ing and PC interaction events. YMMV. ^_^ Paul L. Ming [/QUOTE]
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