What a great storytelling DM looks like

[Starfox]

Little of both, sometimes. I tend to start some plots running, and see which ones the players are likely to meddle in. If they ignore a given plot, it will probably affect things later on. However, I'm careful not to have a plot that nobody's interested in turn out to mean Very Bad Things if they ignore them.

This seems a good middle road for me, even if it is in some ways a "faux sandbox". It gives the players the illusion of the freedom of the sandbox, and "rewards" them by having them pick up the plotlines that turned out to be the major themes of the campaign. It is still a lot of work, tough, as you must present all the paths not taken.

I must admit part of the reason I don't like sandbox play is that I'm lazy. It is much easier for me to prepare one plotline with occasional player-driven excursions than to make a world full of plots, only a few of which will ever come into play. But this is not all - thinking up a plot hook and then not use it is hard for me. Let me give an example:

In my Savage Tide game, I very much enjoyed the first chapters, in Sasserine. I looked up possible scenarios I could use for the setting and inserted those (about half the stuff we do in my Savage Tide campaign is not actually Savage Tide). But I ended up with so much surplus material that it turned into a separate "Sasserine" campaign where the players were police. I think the same could happen if I tried to make a sandbox full of plot hooks - I would become so interested in some of the unrealized hooks that I'd want to make separate campaigns about them.

 

[KidSnide]

The idea that a "sandbox" and a good story are opposed to each other is, perhaps, a fallacy.

I think most people would agree that a good story can come from a sandbox. (Certainly, the Gygas/ENworld mods game is a great story, at least from a certain perspective.) However, people who like the storytelling style think that its techniques lead to stronger stories (admittedly, at the cost of some PC autonomy), because GM intervention can help with pacing, consistency, theme, and - most simply - just finding the best bits to play with.

Although a "sandbox" game definitely isn't opposed to a good story, a sandbox GM does forgo a collection of tools that help produce good stories. And therefore, it's reasonable to put "sandbox" and "storytelling" on a continuum. A sandbox style game grants more PC autonomy and freedom to explore what the PCs want, while a storytelling style game provides more GM guidance, along with the beneficial direction, pacing and narrative tricks that can go along with it.

However - I don't think that the DM can tell a story and still have the players create protagonists for that story.

Terminology confusion aside, I don't think many storytelling GMs think of themselves as "telling a story" themselves, so much as they are telling a story together with the players. A story telling game that does't provide any opportunity for the players to participate in the story telling sounds like a strangely degenerate version of the style.

-KS

 

[Scribble]

That line demonstrates a really, really big gulf in basic premise between generations/ subcultures/ whatever.

Ignorance is bliss. If one has never played Chinese Checkers, Contract Bridge, Cosmic Encounter, Diplomacy, Junta, Rail Baron, Victory in the Pacific, etc., then the gulf may not be apparent.

Story revolves around conflict, so anytime you encounter conflict you find the basic ingredients for a story.

To say any game is story is really no different then when they say the "epic tale of men on the battlefield of the NFL," or something.

 

[Starfox]

In my mind, it is all a matter of degrees. I don't see a line in the sandbox that prevents me from telling a story in it. Yet there might be some ways of looking at a sandbox that prevents me from doing so.


One definition of sandbox could be that it is the players that tell the story, not the GM.

 

[Barastrondo]

This seems a good middle road for me, even if it is in some ways a "faux sandbox". It gives the players the illusion of the freedom of the sandbox, and "rewards" them by having them pick up the plotlines that turned out to be the major themes of the campaign. It is still a lot of work, tough, as you must present all the paths not taken.

To be wholly honest, opening-game play and mid-game play are a little different. I usually start players off with a fairly direct hook to their first adventure -- bandits have stolen the corpse of a party member's mentor, the Library basements are flooding for some unknown reason, the jarl's bride-to-be was murdered en route to her wedding, etc. Along the path to that story, I take note of what details they're asking about (the dwarf hold down the road, the tunnels in the Outer Wall, the movements of mercenary companies) and start fleshing out specific plots from there. Usually I've been scribbling in a notebook about potential villains and plots for a few weeks prior, and I will start drawing from there as appropriate.

I must admit part of the reason I don't like sandbox play is that I'm lazy. It is much easier for me to prepare one plotline with occasional player-driven excursions than to make a world full of plots, only a few of which will ever come into play.

I'm lazy too! (Plus I run multiple games, so it's good to keep things simple.) I do a lot of my planning session by session, though; I might have an idea in my head for an interesting climactic story to an overall arc, but each stage tends to get fleshed out just as I need to.

But this is not all - thinking up a plot hook and then not use it is hard for me. Let me give an example:

In my Savage Tide game, I very much enjoyed the first chapters, in Sasserine. I looked up possible scenarios I could use for the setting and inserted those (about half the stuff we do in my Savage Tide campaign is not actually Savage Tide). But I ended up with so much surplus material that it turned into a separate "Sasserine" campaign where the players were police. I think the same could happen if I tried to make a sandbox full of plot hooks - I would become so interested in some of the unrealized hooks that I'd want to make separate campaigns about them.

Heh heh heh. I understand completely. I have about thirty unused campaign ideas at the moment, stuff that's boiled out from random brainstorming. The nice thing, though, is that campaign or even just plot ideas don't go bad; some age a little poorly as campaigns evolve, but others become more refined as you add other ideas along the way. I've come up with some campaign ideas about a decade before I actually ran them. So I just file them away for later, and if an idea for a corsair game winds up being a good side plot for a different coastal game later on, that's good stuff.

 

[KidSnide]

One definition of sandbox could be that it is the players that tell the story, not the GM.

In a sandbox game, the players tell the story using the GM's world as a medium.

In a story telling game, the GM and players tell the story together.

-KS

 

[Ariosto]

Thanks, Scribble. I really needed that lecture on how utterly banal and useless the "any game is story" remark was. Because I really was so foolish as to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Admin here. I cautioned you earlier: you're being dismissive and rude. It's totally fine to disagree with someone, it's not okay to come across as a sarcastic jerk when you're doing so. Please stop. ~ PCat

 

[Barastrondo]

In a sandbox game, the players tell the story using the GM's world as a medium.

In a story telling game, the GM and players tell the story together.

And perhaps to complicate matters (sorry!), in a story telling game both parties use more of the techniques and skills that a more traditional storyteller would use. There's more of a sense for pushing for dramatic beats like "an exciting way to finish off the evening's session," or thinking about techniques like playing through a flashback sequence or having dramatic reveals or twists.

 

[Scribble]

Removed by admin; already addressed. ~ PCat

 

[Ariosto]

Why Dice?

I am well satisfied as to the use of probabilistic factors in ordinary games.

Their utility in storytelling exercises, however, seems a bit less straightforward.

Certainly every objection raised against an environment through which players are free to wander unscripted applies at least as much to events dictated by chance?