Doing it wrong Part 1: Taking the dragon out of the dungeon

[the Jester]

I have a hard time understanding how you could separate the two. Obviously, you can talk about what happened during the game afterward, in the same way you could talk about a game of Monopoly or what you had for breakfast in the morning. But to the extent that a role-playing game involves role-playing, interacting with other fictional characters and accomplishing (or being thwarted in the completion of) a series of goals significant to the individual characters, there's obviously a narrative that forms during play.

Maybe you're making a more narrow point about how much of that narrative is pre-planned or how it's structured?

Exactly. Generally, when people talk about "story" in D&D, there's a strong element of preplanned sequence of events. There are often campaign themes, a final villain in mind from the start, set piece battles that the dm has in mind. I'm positing that it is no less D&D to play a total sandbox, made before the players generate characters and without any hooks tailored specifically for those pcs or players (but rather with adventures growing from the interaction of the places, npcs and general campaign weirdness set up in advance), with no singular end point in mind (but rather an evolving world in which the pcs move and act), no BBEGs per se (but rather a slew of npcs and monsters that the pcs can interact with as they choose). My whole position is that this is a fine and dandy playstyle, but that saying that you're "telling a story" fails to accurately describe either this type of D&D or, in my view, telling a story.

There's no 'plot' if the dm lets the pcs do what they want. There's no 'story' (except as it emerges) if the dm creates a setting and then turns the pcs loose, acting as an impartial arbiter. That's not what a story is. But later, you do 'tell the story' of the game as it happened. It's the difference between writing a book about going to high school- that's telling a story- and going to high school. (Later, when you're in college, you tell the story of your high school years, but while you're in it, you're living it, not telling the story of it.)

I hope I'm expressing myself clearly here....

Nope; when I see someone shouting "NO STORY" all I see is silly and unnecessary D&D tribalism.

-O

That's not my intent; I find story-driven games (in the sense of games where player agency is secondary to the needs of the story that the gm wants to tell) far less fun than sandbox types of game about 80% of the time, and I do feel there is a distinct difference worth discussing. However, that's my preference, not what makes a good game for everyone. When someone says "No story = Not D&D", I find THAT to be silly and unnecessary D&D tribalism. Worse, it's "one-true-wayism"- "If you don't play my way, you're doing it wrong." Which, of course, is complete BS.

 

[the Jester]

I'm not sure whose position you are opposing yourself to, but your account of story in RPGs seems a bit limited to me.

The "No story means you're playing diablo" position (already recanted upthread by the poster in question, but often de facto supported by other comments in threads like these). You may have a point about my use of the term 'story' in regards to rpgs, though- I do have a fairly narrow and precise definition that I use for myself.

There is a style of RPGing called "story now" or "narrativism" that has nothing to do with a story being planned, or with the GM telling his girlfriend in advance and then thwarting player agency. It has some resemblance to your "going to a new area and talking to the locals" and "spending 3 sessions in a high society party". But the difference from (say) a lot of 2nd ed era modules that have that sort of stuff in them is that the GM designs the locals, and the parties, deliberately to trigger the thematic concerns that the players have built into their PCs. So rather than the main emphasis being on exploring and (vicariously) experiencing the gameworld, the emphasis is on generating thematically engaging story via play.

See, I'd argue that this kind of thing isn't telling a story; it's allowing the story to emerge through play. Which, by my definitions, is very different from storytelling.

This is moderately hard to do in AD&D, because the only class that really bring much pre-packaged theme with it is the thief, but the only time the thief really gets to express that thematic material is in a party of other thieves! (Hence, in my view, the distinctive character of the "all thieves" AD&D campaign. Monks, druids and paladins have the promise of similar thematic heft, but at least in my experience the game doesn't really have the resources to let their thematic elements emerge.) The first AD&D book to try to get thematic material spread throughout the classes, and throughout the monsters that the GM will be using to build situations, is Oriental Adventures. (Though it also has mechanics, like its Honour system, that are an obstacle to "story now" because they try to constrain rather than facilitate player agency.)

I'd say bards have the easiest time here, but your basic point is definitely spot on.

My own view on this is that narrativist play is not all that popular among many RPGers.

I take it for granted that most players aren't very interested in a railroad game unless the railroaded plot is very much a backdrop for the real action of play (this is my sense of how the typical adventure path plays out).

In my experience, it is pretty darn universal that players who realize they are on the railroad will do everything that they can to crash the train, regardless of how pretty it is and how good the food on board tastes.

But it also seems to me - and personally this is a bit more surprising - that many players don't like a game in which non-railroaded story is front and centre. Getting story front-and-centre requires the players to deliberately build their PCs to be thematically interesting, and requires the GM to deliberately frame scenes/situations in such a way as to push on those thematic pressure points, thereby triggering the emergence of story. You won't get this without fairly self-conscious metagaming by the players at the PC-build stage, and by the GM at the encounter design stage, and that sort of metagaming seems to be disliked by many RPGers.

I think it's interesting that MMORPGs seem to be a type of game where metagaming is absolutely accepted, yet pen & paper RPG players have a strong tendency to resist it. It makes me think that P&P is more immersive, maybe not by its nature, but perhaps because a MMORPG always has some players who are busy l33tspeaking and "newb"ing and so on. You can't get away from immersion breakers online, in my (limited) experience!

 

[pemerton]

Exactly. Generally, when people talk about "story" in D&D, there's a strong element of preplanned sequence of events.

For me, personally, that is railroading that I can't stand.

There's no 'plot' if the dm lets the pcs do what they want. There's no 'story' (except as it emerges) if the dm creates a setting and then turns the pcs loose, acting as an impartial arbiter.

I'd argue that this kind of thing isn't telling a story; it's allowing the story to emerge through play. Which, by my definitions, is very different from storytelling.

For me, the main difference betwen sandboxing and my preferred approach is that, on my approach, the elements of the gameworld are designed by the GM to deliberately push the buttons that the players have built into their PCs. That's the metagaming aspect I mentioned upthread.

A side effect of this playstyle is that, compared to some sandboxes, there is probably less prep-in-advance, and more build-backstory-and-situations-on-the-fly. Because the GM has to build on the fly to keep on responding to the twists and turns of (i) player interests as manifested through PC build and behaviour, and (ii) unexpected results of action resolution in prior scenes.

From the point of view of a certain sort of "pure" sandbox this is GM cheating or arbitrariness - in my preferred playstyle, for example, the players can never "outwit" the GM to make things safe or quiet for their PCs, because the GM is always deliberately framing and reframing situations to keep up the pressure (in the style I'm describing, it's also very important to distinguish scene-framing - which the GM is absolutely expected to metagame so as to keep up the pressure - and action resoution, which absolutely has to follow the rules or else player agency in engaging the scenes via their PCs will be thwarted). This is that same element of metagaming.

To try to put it briefly: what happens to the PCs, and what they do, should be suprising to everyone at the table when it happens; but that something happens to the PCs, and that they do something surprising but engaging in response to it, is no surprise at all. It's the point of play.

In my own case, particulalry when I was still developing my preferred approach to GMing, I have had games start out as sandboxes but (inadvertantly) morph into my sort of game. These days I know what I like and don't take the detour through the pure sandbox.

 

[the Jester]

For me, personally, that is railroading that I can't stand.


For me, the main difference betwen sandboxing and my preferred approach is that, on my approach, the elements of the gameworld are designed by the GM to deliberately push the buttons that the players have built into their PCs. That's the metagaming aspect I mentioned upthread.

A side effect of this playstyle is that, compared to some sandboxes, there is probably less prep-in-advance, and more build-backstory-and-situations-on-the-fly. Because the GM has to build on the fly to keep on responding to the twists and turns of (i) player interests as manifested through PC build and behaviour, and (ii) unexpected results of action resolution in prior scenes.

From the point of view of a certain sort of "pure" sandbox this is GM cheating or arbitrariness - in my preferred playstyle, for example, the players can never "outwit" the GM to make things safe or quiet for their PCs, because the GM is always deliberately framing and reframing situations to keep up the pressure (in the style I'm describing, it's also very important to distinguish scene-framing - which the GM is absolutely expected to metagame so as to keep up the pressure - and action resoution, which absolutely has to follow the rules or else player agency in engaging the scenes via their PCs will be thwarted). This is that same element of metagaming.

To try to put it briefly: what happens to the PCs, and what they do, should be suprising to everyone at the table when it happens; but that something happens to the PCs, and that they do something surprising but engaging in response to it, is no surprise at all. It's the point of play.

In my own case, particulalry when I was still developing my preferred approach to GMing, I have had games start out as sandboxes but (inadvertantly) morph into my sort of game. These days I know what I like and don't take the detour through the pure sandbox.

First of all, I have to say that this is a great and enjoyable discussion.

Second, it sounds like our playstyles are about 20 degrees apart on a circle- close, with considerable overlap, but still with noteworthy differences. In my case, I love the idea of the pcs making things quiet for a while, both because I enjoy watching them build the setting through their actions ("we've got downtime, I'm buying an inn!") and because I love letting time pass in the game- I'm one of those guys who HATES the whole "1st to 20th level in a month" thing. I much prefer a sort of "After a year of adventuring, you guys are 6th level" pace.

Anyhow, I'm in full agreement with you on this bit, at least:

To try to put it briefly: what happens to the PCs, and what they do, should be suprising to everyone at the table when it happens; but that something happens to the PCs, and that they do something surprising but engaging in response to it, is no surprise at all. It's the point of play.

However, in my experience, to my tastes and for playstyle my group uses, a sandbox gives me more surprises than anything else. I like a lot of adventures with story in them- the Savage Tide and Age of Worms are both heavy story campaigns, but they're both excellent IMHO- but a sandbox has the (to me) advantage that you never know, things might even be quiet for a while. I totally understand that having downtime (much less playing it out!) isn't for everyone, but that's where some of the biggest surprises come from in my campaign (suddenly, one pc enters the political arena!).

 

[Libramarian]

Yes, I think you're right. If anything though it seems
even more common that *GMs* don't want that emotional
engagement, it makes them feel uncomfortable.

This post by Noisms seems relevant, he discusses how players (inc GMs) will seek to undermine any genuine sense of pathos:
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/being-arch.html

Personally I very much like dramatic, emotionally engaging
play, but I'm well aware that I'm usually in a minority. I think one reason that D&D is so popular is that it provides the bells & whistles to keep
the game engaging without such drama, whereas other
genres & games really need it to work. Eg I did not feel
the zombie apocalypse Savage Worlds game I played
really worked in the absence of genuine (at least B-movie
level) drama & pathos.

Pathos is definitely rare in my games, but they aren't devoid of emotional engagement at all, the palette is just mostly limited to basic, vicarious adventure fiction emotions like "uh oh we could be in over our heads here, this is tense" or "eughh this place is creepy" or "whew! we did it!". Or a nice sense of camaraderie and gratitude between the players -- that's a bit more rare, but it happens. We don't feel the need to deflate these emotions with irony or sarcasm.

As for wonder & awe, or vertiginous insignificance in the face of the weird cosmos -- that I have only very occasionally managed to get at, and I think I would have to take more risks as a DM artistically and maybe be more careful with humor in order to really achieve. I can see how it happening in sandbox gam/sim D&D though. I think it's just the more personal, empathetic level of emotional engagement that's not realistically possible in this style, because the spotlight of the game is so focused on the player characters and the players play them basically as avatars (with a touch of escapist wish fulfilment), so there's not a lot of room for dramatically satisfying tragedy or even self doubt there.

 

[pemerton]

The posts on emotion are interesting. They show that when I said "emotional engagement" upthread I was speaking too broadly, because [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION] has clearly identified emotional engagement that (I think) is not related "story now". [MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] may have also, but I'm less confident of my grasp of the emotions involvedin JC's game.

Ron Edwards says:

The Now refers to the people, during actual play, focusing their imagination to create those emotional moments of decision-making and action, and paying attention to one another as they do it. . . Think of the Now as meaning, "in the moment," or "engaged in doing it," in terms of input and emotional feedback among one another.​

But that is clearly too general a description, because of the examples given in the posts above.

Here is another stab at it, but I don't know if it's any better: the emotional response in "story now" play is engendered by the thematic elements/issues put into focus by the game; and so isn't just the emotional response to vicariously experiencing the PCs' situations (although that should be there too, in an RPG) but is also a personal, non-vicarious response to the events of the game - the way the events unfolded and resolved meant something in an artisitc/aesthetic sense.

A simple example from my own game was when the players elected to have their PCs tame rather than kill a dire bear that was lairing in a ruined temple. Once the bear had been tamed, the player of one of the PCs said[/rul] "I feel really good about not having killed that bear." The response was comparable to the response that might be invoked by an action movie or drama that is full of death and suffering, and then has a surprising scene in which one of the protagonists gets the chance, and takes it, to free a bird from a cage, or not shoot a little bunny rabbit, etc.

The bear example also shows that there's no special connection between "story now" play and thematic depth or insight! A lot of my game is pretty hackneyed in its basic tropes and elements, and I think would not be very good at generating an emotional response from anyone but the participants (the author/audience unity of an RPG makes a big difference to the experience, I think).

The discussion of pathos and of awe is also interesting. As a GM I'm not especially good at either. I'm better at outrage (often around injustice or betrayal), vengeance, and loyalty/reliability.

 

[Meatboy]

I think the point is though that while people can be better or worse in certain aspects of adventuring, unless one adventurer is grossly more experienced than another, their power levels should not be far off. "Better" is a matter of opinion, yes, your character hits more often, mine does more damage, his has more skills, etc... It's reasonable for certain characters to be "better" than others in this manner and for the game to allow this kind of building. "Better" in the sense that my character can do everything yours can 100 fold for no reason other than the rules make Clerics superior to Fighters is dangerous. Even gamists are likely to agree that there's no glory in building a better character when there's no real risk of competition, you have to realistically be able to be challenged, otherwise there's no real skill involved.

If we suppose that the baseline of character power is set at "5", that the default options you get with Core materials will hover around this line, with some being a 6 and others being a 4 at times, then there is reasonable range over time with the introduction of splat to build a 10 or a 1. But the range of 1-10 must exist for most classes, though not necessarily most concepts.

So again, it's reasonable and expected for characters to be better than others in specific areas, but is unusual and unexpected for characters of the same level to grossly exceed the skills of another. If we consider LOTR as a party, the hobbits are grossly exceeded because they're all 1/2 level commoners, while Aragon is a high-level Ranger, Boromir a high-level fighter, Gandalf is gestalt and so on and so forth.

I think we need to be careful when discussing "power level" when talking about classes. Which classes at which levell? Traditionally the fighter has been a stronger class out of the gates than the either the cleric or the wizard, especially if you give them a bow. Sure if you talk sheer power as they approach level 20 then the casters are stronger, getting their is the hard part though unless you start your game at higher levels.
A
As for the LOTR reference neither Aragorn nor Boromir needs to be very high level if the hobbits are level 0 commoners.

 

[Obryn]

I think we need to be careful when discussing "power level" when talking about classes. Which classes at which levell? Traditionally the fighter has been a stronger class out of the gates than the either the cleric or the wizard, especially if you give them a bow.

I just want to point out that not everything "traditional" is worthy of being kept for new editions. Even if we accept your original premise that D&D is terrible at anything other than dungeon-crawling, this isn't a necessary feature.

-O

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think we need to be careful when discussing "power level" when talking about classes. Which classes at which levell? Traditionally the fighter has been a stronger class out of the gates than the either the cleric or the wizard, especially if you give them a bow.

For some values of tradition. 1e clerics are stronger out of the gate than fighters - they bring more health to the party and far more flexibility. 3e wizards and clerics are both stronger out of the gate than fighters. (UA/2e fighters are pretty awesome with Weapon Specialisation and o/bD&D first level clerics got no spells).

Sure if you talk sheer power as they approach level 20 then the casters are stronger, getting their is the hard part though unless you start your game at higher levels.

If we're talking traditional, the casters in just about all versions have comfortably overtaken by level 9 which is why the fighter gets an entire army to back him at this point. Even in the editions where fighters start out stronger, the crossing point is somewhere around level 5 - which works for a game with a soft cap at level 9 or 10 (as AD&D had). In 3.X the Giant in the Playground forums had a series of duels with no prep or running away allowed between a level 20 fighter using any splatbook and a level 13 wizard using only core rules. The fighter only kept in it by using almost a million GP from the Wealth by Level table to tool up like Iron Man.

 

[Teacher Man]

@Pemberton

To me, a pre-made adventure is not a game on rails, it's merely a skeleton that is fleshed out by the decisions the players make. It's also something that can be worked into a 'sandbox mode' game. And while some groups do great without much structure, other's don't. One of the great things about D&D is that you are not boxed into one play style.

I have a bunch of high school kids who don't have the experience necessary to go a sandbox game and I am not organized enough to provide that kind of experience for them. I am, however, creative enough to take a premade module and shape it into a more organic experience. It's not a game on rails and I think you do a disservice to modules with such a dismissive attitude.

Are there people who make it a railroad style game? Yes there are, but the modules are what you, as the DM make them, they are a resource, nothing more, nothing less, it's what you DO with that resource that counts.

I saw a post where one of the players opened an inn, great have a marauding band of (fill in creature here) raid the city and burn the inn to the ground! You now have the hook to make the players seek revenge on them. Stick the cave, castle, tomb etc., out in the wilderness, the players track them there and you're off to the races.

Sandbox plus resource = good time had by all...