Overusing Coincidence in Game-Related Stories

Bear with me a while, as the following becomes a lesson for writing stories in RPGs. My wife and I have been watching the HBO Game of Thrones series on DVD. We’re now into the fifth season. Not long ago she started to read the Song of Ice and Fire books (I read them long ago, and only remember major events). It’s interesting to hear how the show simplifies things, and sometimes drops characters altogether, as they must to fit into a “mere” 80 hours*.

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I’ve noticed that as the show deviates from the plotlines of the book more and more, there’s a lot more coincidence in the plot. Part of life, part of stories, is chance. This is often expressed in stories via coincidence. Two parties happen to be in the same town or city, and happen to visit the same inn or tavern or brothel, at the same time. And at least one of the parties sees the other. Yes, something this unlikely happens occasionally, but when coincidence happens a lot, the author(s) are manipulating the plot, rather than letting the situation and the desires and propensities of the characters cause the story to flow naturally.

To me, using a lot of coincidence is inferior writing. But it isn’t surprising in television writing, because television writing typically emphasizes dramatic incidents to the detriment of sensible plot. The viewers are just as jaded as modern gamers, and (I suppose) don’t have the patience for long, intricate, sensible plots. It happens in movies as well: Star Wars has always had huge plot holes and non-sensical major elements, but also vast numbers of fans (including me until recently). As my wife reads Martin’s novels, we see more and more instances where the show has thrown together characters for a dramatic incident that is not part of Song of Fire and Ice. That’s how TV works.

Those who use coincidence a lot in stories are in good company. Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB), one of the fathers if not THE father of adventure fiction, litters his Barsoom stories with coincidences. Coincidence often drives the plot. But remember that ERB was writing only 65,000 words for serial publication. Coincidence is a way to move the plot forward much faster than by more organic means – just as it is in television and movies.

You can do the same (or not) when you write a story as part of a game. Stories in games are pre-eminently the domain of single-player video games, where the designers can control what the player can do. The games are quite linear. In the same way, the GM of a tabletop RPG (the second most common use of stories in games) can create a linear adventure. The question is, how much of this adventure will derive from the situation and the characters, and how much from coincidence and other results of chance?

I prefer to set up situations in adventures, with an overall arc (such as the war between Good and Evil), and let the players write their own story. Sometimes it won’t be as good as a story I might write, but it will be the PLAYERS’ story; to me, that’s what games are about, the players, not the story.

Your mileage may vary: how you create stories in games is up to you. I try to avoid coincidence, so that when I do resort to it, there’s a big impact.

* Reference: When I make a screencast/video for my Game Design YouTube channel, I talk at about 135 words a minute. (I transcribe the vids, so I can measure this accurately.) 80 hours of me talking constantly would be nearly 650,000 words. A TV show of that length would be far fewer words, but visuals would compensate. I don’t know how long Song of Ice and Fire is, but a typical novel is 90-100,000 words, and massive novels (such as these) can be 300,000. Online estimates put the series well over 1.7M. There are two more books to come, so we’re talking well over two million words for the entire series, over three times what the TV show has available. You can see why even a stupendously long TV program must drop or gloss over a lot of the detail we find in the books. It also becomes clear why a typical movie based on a novel must drop immense amounts of detail and even major plotlines. Book-based movies can at best only be the essence of the book(s).

This article was contributed by Lewis Pulsipher (lewpuls) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

When PCs steal an idol from an abandoned temple and then on the way out get ambushed by their hated rival and the tribesmen that he has hired, is that a coincidence or just good role-playing of NPCs?

It depends entirely on the nature of their rival, and whether they laid the appropriate groundwork in the days before the PCs conducted their raid. If he'd gone through the trouble of hiring help, then that indicates someone with reasonable planning skills, so it would appear to me as though it was good role-playing rather than contrived coincidence.

As long as the DM had shown themself to be trustworthy before this incident, I would certainly give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

When PCs steal an idol from an abandoned temple and then on the way out get ambushed by their hated rival and the tribesmen that he has hired, is that a coincidence or just good role-playing of NPCs?

I think that's a good example, but Indiana Jones is, of course, a character with real plot armor and isn't actually making decisions. Presumably the PCs are the protagonists of the campaign (in a broad sense) but the DM really needs to avoid being too novelistic---that way lies railroading. A lot of good D&D games are indeed fairly lousy as stories and I think it's one reason that fiction strongly rooted in someone's RPG campaign is often so poor.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

It depends entirely on the nature of their rival, and whether they laid the appropriate groundwork in the days before the PCs conducted their raid. If he'd gone through the trouble of hiring help, then that indicates someone with reasonable planning skills, so it would appear to me as though it was good role-playing rather than contrived coincidence.

As long as the DM had shown themself to be trustworthy before this incident, I would certainly give them the benefit of the doubt.

Also, some games are more narrative-driven than others. For example, I've been running the Conan 2D20 RPG recently. It is built to emulate the source stories and thus it has a mechanic for that: The GM spends Doom to enact certain coincidences, such as ensuring that the PCs run into opposition or some kind of setback. For instance, in a recent game, the two PCs were chasing after some a Dweller of the Deep (fishmen) and hybrids who had looted a ship that had been wrecked on the shore due to storms the fishmen are summoning which currently have the PCs trapped. However, there was an adversary that had originally held the PCs as slaves floating around trying to recapture them. When the PCs got close to the fishmen I spent Doom and had the slavers show up. The PCs managed to get the fishmen and the slavers into a three way brawl which the slavers took the worst half of (being outnumbered), which helped the PCs defeat the fishmen later. That's totally genre-appropriate and the game is built to make that happen.

D&D, by contrast, is much more wargamey and if you're running a less narratively-driven game, it wouldn't be good to do that too much. It could very easily end up feeling like a DM vs. players scenario.

 

[AriochQ]

I find the entire concept of a "cheating DM" in this context to be humorous. I would posit the old school definition of DM made it impossible for them to 'cheat'. But that is a topic for another day. Also, the viewpoint as DM as an adversary is wrong-headed in so many ways I can't even begin to explain why.

In this context, we are discussing the DM as Storyteller, and in this role it is impossible for them to 'cheat'. As a storyteller, coincidence is a convenient mechanism to move the story along. It can be overused, so it is best not to use it willy-nilly. Excessive use is simply bad story telling, not cheating.

We do use coincidence all the time, even when running modules. It is most often the case that events begin when the PC's enter the area. That is totally unrealistic and the very definition of coincidence. For example, the guard happens to be asleep PC's arrive, allowing the PC's to sneak past without raising the alarm. If they take a short rest, and arrive an hour later, the guard still happens to be asleep. Read any published adventure and coincidental events happen throughout. It makes running the adventure simpler and makes for better story pacing. This type of coincidence tends not to bother people, since it is high probability.

Low probability coincidence should be used much more sparingly, as it interferes with the suspension of disbelief. In my experience, it should only be used for major campaign plot points.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I find the entire concept of a "cheating DM" in this context to be humorous. I would posit the old school definition of DM made it impossible for them to 'cheat'. But that is a topic for another day. Also, the viewpoint as DM as an adversary is wrong-headed in so many ways I can't even begin to explain why.

In theory, the DM was supposed to make copious notes beforehand, and then adjudicate based on the notes. Cheating, in that context, might take the form of ignoring the notes or changing them in order to prevent the players from accomplishing some goal. The most clear-cut example of a cheating DM would be one who rolls behind the screen, and their monster happens to get a critical hit which drops the PC at the right moment; or vice-versa, with a monster who botches an attack, because they didn't want to kill a PC. The standard ward against that sort of cheating is to roll in the open; or, in the prior case, ask to see the DM's notes.

In this context, we are discussing the DM as Storyteller, and in this role it is impossible for them to 'cheat'. As a storyteller, coincidence is a convenient mechanism to move the story along. It can be overused, so it is best not to use it willy-nilly. Excessive use is simply bad story telling, not cheating.

Are we talking about a DM? Or a Storyteller? Because the terms are not interchangeable.

We do use coincidence all the time, even when running modules. It is most often the case that events begin when the PC's enter the area. That is totally unrealistic and the very definition of coincidence. For example, the guard happens to be asleep PC's arrive, allowing the PC's to sneak past without raising the alarm. If they take a short rest, and arrive an hour later, the guard still happens to be asleep. Read any published adventure and coincidental events happen throughout. It makes running the adventure simpler and makes for better story pacing. This type of coincidence tends not to bother people, since it is high probability.

Low probability coincidence should be used much more sparingly, as it interferes with the suspension of disbelief. In my experience, it should only be used for major campaign plot points.

I played through a Pathfinder adventure path, once. I distinctly remember a point when the group found itself in a strange world, where I decided to do some quick exploring before my Wind Walk wore off. A quick (move speed 600') fly around the locale revealed a horrible demon that was (coincidentally) in the middle of consuming a humanoid corpse. I had no chance of fighting such a thing by myself, so I just made a note of it, and flew back to the rest of the group.

The GM later told us that this has been a contrived coincidence, and that the demon was always going to be in the middle of consuming that corpse, whenever the first PC spotted it. The corpse was actually a plot key, and there was no way to get back to our home world without it, which is why it was guaranteed to be there whenever we got to that area. Since I observed it without engaging in combat, though, it was lost forever.

Of course, that was stupid, and there's no way that my character could ever believe that they had done something wrong by gaining more information about an unknown situation, even if the player knew otherwise. My suspension of disbelief was shot, though, and I lost all confidence in Pathfinder adventure paths.

 

[pemerton]

I think that's a good example, but Indiana Jones is, of course, a character with real plot armor and isn't actually making decisions.

Well, the PCs aren't actually making decisions either - the players are, just like the writers of Indiana Jones.

Presumably the PCs are the protagonists of the campaign (in a broad sense) but the DM really needs to avoid being too novelistic---that way lies railroading. A lot of good D&D games are indeed fairly lousy as stories and I think it's one reason that fiction strongly rooted in someone's RPG campaign is often so poor.

Also, some games are more narrative-driven than others. For example, I've been running the Conan 2D20 RPG recently. It is built to emulate the source stories and thus it has a mechanic for that: The GM spends Doom to enact certain coincidences, such as ensuring that the PCs run into opposition or some kind of setback.

<snip>

D&D, by contrast, is much more wargamey and if you're running a less narratively-driven game, it wouldn't be good to do that too much. It could very easily end up feeling like a DM vs. players scenario.

For a RPG to happen, the PCs have to find themselves in some sort of situation that gives the players the opportunity to declare meaningful actions for those PCs. There are two basic options for who decides what the situation is: the players, or the GM. And within those options, their are sub-options.

It's relatively uncommon for the players to be able to establish their own situations out of whole cloth; in classic dungeon-crawling D&D the GM has prepared a dungeon or wilderness, and the players get to choose what area(s) their PCs tackle and also the conditions (stealth, gear, etc) under which that tackling happens.

If the GM is establishing the situations, the GM can do that independently of what has gone before and/or without significant regard to past player actions - inevitably an AP is going to look quite a bit like this, given that it is pre-authored - or the GM can establish situations on the basis of what has gone before.

I don't think the GM using coincidence, or "narrative logic", in establishing situations has to be railroad-y. Presumably you don't think your Conan game was a railroad! I don't think that D&D has to be wildly different in this respect. Classic dungeon-crawl or hexcrawl D&D is wargame-y, but I'm not sure that that's the main way of playing D&D these days.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Well, the PCs aren't actually making decisions either - the players are, just like the writers of Indiana Jones.

OK, if you want to be pedantic about it. The main thing is that in a story like Indiana Jones, the writer(s) get to make choices and often go back and edit/rescript, whereas in an RPG the GM certainly isn't the only writer. Very authorial GMs are often quite frustrating to deal with and that's where railroading often happens.

For a RPG to happen, the PCs have to find themselves in some sort of situation that gives the players the opportunity to declare meaningful actions for those PCs. There are two basic options for who decides what the situation is: the players, or the GM. And within those options, their are sub-options.

Absolutely. The GM is usually setting out the world and various events, but the players usually have important roles to play in terms of choosing where to go, what to do, etc.

I don't think the GM using coincidence, or "narrative logic", in establishing situations has to be railroad-y.

Nope, I don't either, but for some players it will be, especially GMs who have a sometimes adversarial relationship with one or more players (which can certainly happen).

Presumably you don't think your Conan game was a railroad! I don't think that D&D has to be wildly different in this respect.

Nope, it wasn't. There are a number of moves they could have made that would have been different than the direction they chose. My main point was that the Doom mechanic is a clear tool for the GM to introduce narrative elements, such as deciding this is where the random encounter is. Given that the Doom pool is filled up by player choices, it's also something that the players indirectly control. If they see a rapidly building Doom pool, they know something's coming for them, be it a hard fight or some hazard. When... what... well, that's a good question. This is really quite different than D&D, where narrative elements are not really part of the game mechanics. Players can also exercise author type actions via Fortune Points, which let them do "dramatic editing."

Classic dungeon-crawl or hexcrawl D&D is wargame-y, but I'm not sure that that's the main way of playing D&D these days.

I'm not sure either, but the game system itself is quite wargame-y and generally lacks tools for making it more narratively driven; what ones there are are mostly grafted on. This has pluses and minuses, of course, and one can totally do without them. The vast majority of game play I've done over my years has been without those aspects. In general, the fact that it lacks these tools is due, I think, to the fact that it's an old system that much more clearly shows its wargame origins.

 

[Shasarak]

I think that's a good example, but Indiana Jones is, of course, a character with real plot armor and isn't actually making decisions. Presumably the PCs are the protagonists of the campaign (in a broad sense) but the DM really needs to avoid being too novelistic---that way lies railroading. A lot of good D&D games are indeed fairly lousy as stories and I think it's one reason that fiction strongly rooted in someone's RPG campaign is often so poor.

I would agree that most DnD adventures are indeed fairly lousy as stories, a famous quote compared a DnD game to a half hour of fun crammed into four hours of play. As RPGs are still such a young genre it is no surprise that we are still struggling with how to do it well.

Take this discussion of coincidence as an example. Is the DM deciding that Belloq turning up outside the temple that Indie had just explored a good or bad DMing compared to say the DM rolling Belloq on a random monster table? If Tracey Hickman had not rolled a random Vampire in a standard DnD dungeon crawl campaign which made him start wondering what the heck this guy was doing in a Dungeon we may not have had Strahd. Maybe the answer is both planning and randomness.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

I would agree that most DnD adventures are indeed fairly lousy as stories, a famous quote compared a DnD game to a half hour of fun crammed into four hours of play. As RPGs are still such a young genre it is no surprise that we are still struggling with how to do it well.

Take this discussion of coincidence as an example. Is the DM deciding that Belloq turning up outside the temple that Indie had just explored a good or bad DMing compared to say the DM rolling Belloq on a random monster table? If Tracey Hickman had not rolled a random Vampire in a standard DnD dungeon crawl campaign which made him start wondering what the heck this guy was doing in a Dungeon we may not have had Strahd. Maybe the answer is both planning and randomness.

I tend to think of RPGs more like improvisation (aka spontaneous composition) or sketch comedy compared to pre-written compositions or sketches. Any good jazz guy will say that not every show go goes well. Albums have compilations of the best takes. But yes, you need some planning to make things any good, at least generally. It's very rare that pure improv is going to be interesting.

 

[Shasarak]

I tend to think of RPGs more like improvisation (aka spontaneous composition) or sketch comedy compared to pre-written compositions or sketches. Any good jazz guy will say that not every show go goes well. Albums have compilations of the best takes. But yes, you need some planning to make things any good, at least generally. It's very rare that pure improv is going to be interesting.

I think that if you ask any improv (or jazz) guy what their secret is it would probably be practise*.



*Well practise and having a guy in the crowd to feed you the right words. =;0)