Why we like plot: Our Job as DMs

[Raven Crowking]

What I am saying is, is I want the resolution of each scene to be meaningful and not just the resolution of the whole campaign.

Imagine, if you would, that your scenes are like rounds in a D&D combat. Each scene/round changes the conditions of the subsequent scenes/rounds, making the ultimate victory conditions either easier, or more difficult, to achieve, until the adventure/combat is resolved one way or another.

This is something that attrition-model D&D does very, very well, but there are a lot of other ways to do it.

Success lies not in getting the PCs to buy into your scenes, but in negotiating victory conditions that the players are interested in (including just letting them choose their goals!) and then determining how the outcomes of your scenes fit into that overarching victory condition.


RC

 

[ExploderWizard]

I agree with CharlesRyan: that plot is not necessarily equal to railroad but think that we need to think deeper about outcomes.

If the resolution of every scene/fight/situation/roleplay in an adventure is defined as an outcome, the design problem becomes how to allow as many outcomes as possible from each scene, whilst still creating a situation where it makes sense for scene 1 to follow scene 2 etc (or at least allowing the DM to get some play out of his pre-prepared locations/NPCs etc.

What I am saying is, is I want the resolution of each scene to be meaningful and not just the resolution of the whole campaign.

For that to be true, each scene has to have multiple outcomes and if that is true, you are going to end up with many roads/locations/logic paths that are never followed or played: this is a serious waste of GM prep time.

This is why the "sand-boxers" would argue that we should concentrate on designing a reusable environment for the players to interact with rather than using plot to corall the action to certain times and places.

I don't entirely agree with them, but think that we need some better general strategies for allowing adventure writers and DMs to create plots that have a backstory without pre-determining the outcome of any scene/fight/roleplay.

The trap of having to conform to certain times and places for the action can be avoided without having to abandon the concept of story and plot.

I broke down my thoughts on this in another thread here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/267646-confession-i-like-plot-3.html#post4991306

Plots can be hatched and carried out all while making the choices of the PC's still meaningful.

Plots are not the actual problem in these situations most of the time. Plots are often forced to stand in front of the firing squad while the real culprit; scene scripting, looks on and laughs.

When a DM envisions certain events occuring in a particular way and shapes gameplay decisions around making that vision a reality then he/she falls into the trap of scene scripting.

Scene scripting happens when the DM anticipates the PC's actions far too much. When this anticipation is way off the PC's get labeled as plot murderers when in reality they are only guilty of scene skirting.

When the DM has moment of "they are ruining my plot!!!" it becomes time to ask exactly who is having thier plot ruined. Is the plot/backstory really ruined or it merely a case of an unplayed out scene being tossed in the wastebasket by an unexpected decision?

 

[Ydars]

I completely agree: scene scripting is the root of the railroad.

However, the problem is, because of limited prep time, if we create a plot we have a tendancy to make scene 1 follow scene 2 follow scene 3. This can actually be a form of plot scripting because outcomes that break this chain of causality will not be favored by a DM who has just done a ton of statting/mapping/ etc.

What strategies have you used to avoid scene scripting and which ones would be of use to people WRITING adventures down? I know there are many techniques for doing it on the fly, but what if you are trying to preserve choice in a set of scenes whilst still stringing them together logically in a published module? I ask, as that is where I think the problem starts, because many people run published modules when they start to DM and get into bad habits as a result.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That to me is one of the biggest weaknesses of GNS. According to the theory, both D&D and Vampire are terrible games, and therefore should not be successful at all. In reality, they are two of the most popular games of all time. You can either conclude that there's a problem with the theory, or smugly declare that all these sheeple don't get what gaming is really about.

It seems to me one of its failures might be that it pretends that a game is only good if focuses on one of the G-N-S. (And later it seems to say only N counts for something).

 

[Ydars]

Thanks for your reply RavenCrowKing.

I have used the idea of incremental gains across a number of scenes to get to a final goal in a module I just finished for Ordo Draconis.

In the module, the PCs are in a Manor House, owned by the BBEG, in secret passages that the BBEG does not know about. Their goal is to let some attackers in, so that the Manor will fall, and they have until morning.

There are a number of scenes, that can be played in any order and which the PCs can try and deal with however they like (or not at all). The overall outcome of the attack on the Manor is determined by the summation of whether the PCs, drug the guards, discover and open the siege tunnel running under the walls, signal the attack at the correct time etc etc. So this removes some of the "sting" if any one part of the plot goes a certain way. I then wrote rules for what happens if the PCs are seen or alert the guards accidentally etc etc. So it is a bit like a mini-sandbox with only an over-arching goal.

Can you think of any other ways to achieve the same sort of balance between plot and free-form play?

 

[Raven Crowking]

They key (IMHO) is to allow the possibility of multiple solutions to any given problem, while knowing full well that another solution might be presented by the players that you didn't think of. "Here is the goal, here are your resources, what do you do?" Various options can add resources, modify the goal, etc., just as various events in a combat can shift the strategems or goals (run away!) of the participants.

IMHO, if the GM seeds opportunities, without worrying about whether they will manifest, and allows the players to recognize opportunities the GM neither intended nor expected, then all is right with the (game) world.

RC

 

[Janx]

As usual CR hit on a point I was going to make.

As a DM, I typically expect the players to win every combat encounter, and to "win" the adventure. Not because I "let" them. But because that's the default assumption. Players do stuff or try new tactics, until they are successful.

The encounters are usually scaled to the party level, which means, on some level, the party is expected to win. There's always variance in what it takes to win, and the party's status after winning.

In the same vein, if you run a murder mystery plot, there is an expected path. PCs get involved with murder investigation. PCs follow clues. PCs confront murderer. There's a whole bunch of variance that can happen in there AND follow that chain of events. There's also the possibility of NOT making it to the end confrontation. But generally, you start with a basic path, and ad-lib the changes as you go.

Why? Because it is easier to plan on a basic obvious path than to plan on all possible paths and outcomes. Plus, since no plan survives contact with the enemy, you'd be wasting your time over-planning elements that won't be used.

The elements you use to write your murder adventure will include clues, NPCs, a villain, and some locations. As the PCs wander around your "plot", you'll have to shift these elements to keep up with the party's choices, to give them an outcome, as befits their choices.

This is no different than on the DM's turn during combat, he looks at how many orcs he has left, where they are in relation to the party, and gives them actions to continue the combat to an outcome that befits the party's choices.

Basically, just because I wrote an ambush encounter with 5 orcs that I expected the party to deal with and continue on their quest, doesn't mean the most obvious outcome will happen. I use the bits I have to make each round make sense relative to what has occurred. That may even mean having to orcs capture rather than kill the party because I was on the cusp of a TPK in what should have been an easy encounter, due to good rolls on my part, and bad rolls for the players.

Likewise, in my murder mystery, I use all the elements I wrote up to keep the investigation the PCs are actively pursuing in motion. That means moving things along with some new events if the game gets bogged down due to confusion. it may mean shifting things entirely if the PCs go down a new direction. Since you can't have a murder mystery without a killer and some clues, you've got to have a plan of how the basic path works out.

This in turn does not make it a railroad. It is simply running the game. Which since the dawn of RPG time, has been what GMs are expected to do. And since a number of us are able to run a game using these methods, without making it a railroad, and making it a challenge and not a "freebie feel-good" ride, all these arguments about railroading are...off track.

 

[Desdichado]

How is the OP not claiming that "my play style is superior to your play style, period"?

He is, although I don't think he's meaning to.

Still; it's a refreshing change to see "storygames" held out that way after the barrage of sandbox, OSR playstyle held out as objectively better discussion that seems to otherwise float around every RPG discussion forum I hang out at anymore.

 

[maddman75]

It seems to me one of its failures might be that it pretends that a game is only good if focuses on one of the G-N-S. (And later it seems to say only N counts for something).

Ah yes, GNS proves that gaming has something for everyone. Gamism is for immature munchkins, Simulationism is for basement-dwelling grognards, and Narrativism is for good-looking right-thinking non-communists.

I think the three agenda are there, but there are more agenda out there and variations. For instance, I rather like games that deal with themes and characters working through those themes. However, I don't get into the aspect that says its my own personal beliefs, I find it just as fun (moreso) to deal with the beliefs of a fictional personality. And it is where they intersect that I find them more interesting. How do we turn the themes of the game into a mechanic? How do we simulate a world that reflects these themes.

GNS has produces some fun, awesome games. But I don't think its the be-all, end-all of gaming theory.

 

[Desdichado]

If the known end method of entertainment is interesting and fun for those involved then there isn't a thing wrong with it. You might be confusing the terms "valid" and "game". To me, such experiences do not qualify as a game but DO qualify as a valid and acceptable form of entertainment.

No, I think the recent explosion of derogatory buzzwords in the online RPG communities is certainly problematic. You can't go around saying, "that's not even a game" or "that's what I call 'shooting the breeze'" or "I'm creating a new label called 'storygames' for your playstyle, which is in opposition to 'true roleplaying games'" and all the other nonsense that I've seen in recent months and then turn around and say that you think all of these are equally valid.

For some reason One True Wayism™ and RPG evangelism is really faddish right now. I've seen a lot more of it in the last year or two than I ever did in the previous ten or fifteen years that I've been talking about RPGs online. This thread is rampant with it, sadly.