How different PC motivations support sandbox and campaign play

[hawkeyefan]

A lot of D&D play isn't about having a story. It's about the players beating the adventure using their PCs as the vehicles for doing that. It's a type of wargaming variant - like freeform wargaming (and unlike boardgames and some wargames), the fiction matters to adjudication and can be "played" directly by a skilled player without the need for mechanical mediation; but unlike a wargame each player is playing a single individual character.

A module like Tomb of Horrors, or the Caves of Chaos in Keep on the Borderlands, or even a rather quirky module like Castle Amber, doesn't really make sense except in this sort of context.

I get that aspect of the game, but I don’t think that means that the group is not still telling a story. It’s the story of how the group survived the Isle of Dread, or how they braved the Tomb of Horrors and faced Acererak.

Yes it’s a game, but it also has a setting and characters and a bit of plot.

 

[pemerton]

I get that aspect of the game, but I don’t think that means that the group is not still telling a story. It’s the story of how the group survived the Isle of Dread, or how they braved the Tomb of Horrors and faced Acererak.

Yes it’s a game, but it also has a setting and characters and a bit of plot.

When I said "a lot of D&D play" I didn't mean (necessarily) a lot of your D&D play. I'm talking about how various tables approach the game, rather than aspects of the game at any given table. I think there are plenty of tables (what proportion "plenty" equals can be an exercise for the reader) where beating the module is the game. And where the characters (as more than game pieces) and plot are just flavour text, while the setting is something to be engaged as part of skillful play but not something that serves a separate aesthetic purpose.

At those tables, the PCs aren't "protagonists" so much as game pieces, and they're not "special" in any way beyond that.

It's not personally how I prefer to play an RPG, but I think there's no disputing that it's a real thing.

 

[hawkeyefan]

When I said "a lot of D&D play" I didn't mean (necessarily) a lot of your D&D play. I'm talking about how various tables approach the game, rather than aspects of the game at any given table. I think there are plenty of tables (what proportion "plenty" equals can be an exercise for the reader) where beating the module is the game. And where the characters (as more than game pieces) and plot are just flavour text, while the setting is something to be engaged as part of skillful play but not something that serves a separate aesthetic purpose.

At those tables, the PCs aren't "protagonists" so much as game pieces, and they're not "special" in any way beyond that.

It's not personally how I prefer to play an RPG, but I think there's no disputing that it's a real thing.

Yup...and it’s a style of play I find odd.

 

[Lanefan]

I find the "nothing special about these characters" mindset to be a bit odd. If there's nothing special about them, then why have a story about them?

Because they happen to be the ones that have players attached at the moment.

That other party of NPCs you just met in the tavern, they could have a story too and it might even be more interesting than yours were it ever told; but none of us will ever know because those characters don't have players attached and thus nothing they do is ever likely to become all that relevant. An analogy is that you're watching a Liverpool-v-Arsenal football match and because Liverpool is your team (analagous to being the PC party in a game) you're going to follow their story even though you're well aware there's well over 100 other clubs in the FA (analagous to all the other adventuring parties out there in the game world).

As for the "wargame" aspect: I'm not quite sure how to phrase this but I think there's a big disconnect between a) trying to tell the story in the here and now of play via forced narrative and-or railroading and-or hard scene framing and b) just playing the game organically, following along with the in-game decisions the PCs/players make, and letting the story in effect write itself in hindsight.

Put another way (and maybe not any more clearly!), is the table approaching an element of play - a big scene, a search for an item, an interaction with a guard, whatever - with a specific view as to where this action fits into The Story, or is the approach a more here-and-now-based one of this is where the PCs have taken themselves and this is what they find themselves doing at the moment?

Me, as both player and DM I far prefer to just play the game, with or without any sort of overarching plot line, and let the story - in whatever form it may take - see to itself after the fact. Put another way, we do what we do in the here and now; and when we read over the cumulative game logs later a story (or more likely a whole bunch of interwoven stories of scale both grand and small) will emerge.

Lanefan

 

[hawkeyefan]

Because they happen to be the ones that have players attached at the moment.

That other party of NPCs you just met in the tavern, they could have a story too and it might even be more interesting than yours were it ever told; but none of us will ever know because those characters don't have players attached and thus nothing they do is ever likely to become all that relevant. An analogy is that you're watching a Liverpool-v-Arsenal football match and because Liverpool is your team (analagous to being the PC party in a game) you're going to follow their story even though you're well aware there's well over 100 other clubs in the FA (analagous to all the other adventuring parties out there in the game world).

As for the "wargame" aspect: I'm not quite sure how to phrase this but I think there's a big disconnect between a) trying to tell the story in the here and now of play via forced narrative and-or railroading and-or hard scene framing and b) just playing the game organically, following along with the in-game decisions the PCs/players make, and letting the story in effect write itself in hindsight.

Put another way (and maybe not any more clearly!), is the table approaching an element of play - a big scene, a search for an item, an interaction with a guard, whatever - with a specific view as to where this action fits into The Story, or is the approach a more here-and-now-based one of this is where the PCs have taken themselves and this is what they find themselves doing at the moment?

Me, as both player and DM I far prefer to just play the game, with or without any sort of overarching plot line, and let the story - in whatever form it may take - see to itself after the fact. Put another way, we do what we do in the here and now; and when we read over the cumulative game logs later a story (or more likely a whole bunch of interwoven stories of scale both grand and small) will emerge.

Lanefan

That’s fair.

When I say special, I don’t necessarily mean that the characters are somehow special compared to other people in their world...chosen ones or anything like that (although that could certainly be possible, and I’m sure it happens all the time). I just mean why are we telling their story, whatever it may be, and however we may tell it.

Yes, we have an answer that “it’s a game, and these are the characters the players have created”...but I just think there’s more to it than that. Or, I prefer there to be, anyway. I feel like there needs to be something unique or interesting about the characters or their adventures that sets them apart. They aren’t just another group of adventurers...they’re THE adventurers we’re watching.

And I’m not advocating rail roading or anything of the sort. The story can exist ahead of time or it can emerge through play. Most likely it’ll be a bit of both. I don’t think everything needs to be predetermined by the GM in order for there to be a story in place. Very likely there may be a few stories based solely on the PCs that are created.