D&D 5E Would you play or run a game if the party's members are not the protagonists?

[Kramodlog]

Games where we played Knights of the Round Table are games where we weren't the Big Heroes. I've also had games where the NPCs were more important, like being the bodyguards of a prince. Those are fun for a few sessions, but then you hit a wall. You can't do this because it is X that does that, you can't kill X because it is Y who kills him, etc.

Like an adventure where you try to infiltrate a prison or try to stop the robbery on a train, such thematics are best left for a few game sessions, not an entire campaign.

 

[Nytmare]

I had been part of a solo kinda Highlander, kinda Quantum Leap game when I was in college that unfortunately died off. Something happened to my character, and when he died he found himself in someone else's body with access to their abilities and kinda access to the things they knew, while they were effectively bound and gagged in a little corner of their mind. The game unfortunately ended before i was able to figure out what was going on and why, but I gathered that the guy running the game had plans to slowly ramp things up with me jumping into the bigger and more important NPCs and current events that were going on in the world, and that those would eventually explain what was happening to me.

 

[Nytmare]

This could actually work and be a hell of a lot of fun with one big caveat and change: it needs to be a side game.

There was some published RPG that I ran into over the last half a decade or so that encouraged the GM to have the players play out exposition, flashback, and flash forward scenes at the beginning of each session. I don't remember what it was.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

Eh, I'll play or run anything that isn't FATAL at least once.

 

[Ezequielramone]

This could actually work and be a hell of a lot of fun with one big caveat and change: it needs to be a side game.

Seeing the everymen in the backgrounds work and doing small missions is fun when you care about the larger conflict and when you can focus on their small problems while understanding the plot. People on the ground often don't get to see the larger scale unfolding, so the players miss all that drama and feel removed. It's fine when you're just starting out as you know you'll learn the story, but it makes for a poor campaign or minigame. Similarly, meeting or seeing the big damn heroes lacks emotional depth and resonance. They're just NPCs.
Rosencrats and Guildenstern are dead only works if you know Hamlet.

However, if you're doing it as a side game everything changes.

Imagine if you're running a campaign in a war. There's a couple missions that could be done, so you start the PCs on one and end the session. The next session, you're playing the mooks doing the other quest.
Suddenly, you know the story, you know the Name heroes, and you know what's going on. And your success matters as it will affect your main characters when they return.

You, sir, gave me a great idea. I can't thank you enough. I think I'll use this next session (I'm running Tiranny of Dragons)

Thanks to all of you for sharing your experiences.

 

[Rhenny]

They used to run print ads for a Star Wars RPG that showed some storm troopers walking around some planetary hub with an arrow pointing to one of them. The pull quote was, " What's this guy's story." I loved that ad. That's what this thread reminded me of.

In a way, any PC in the Forgotten Realms is a minor character (not many Elminsters or Drizzts about). We are all minor characters compared with the legends. By struggling, experiencing, choosing causes to fight for perhaps we'll one day become legends ourselves.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I think it’s fine to create a campaign where there are big things happening around them. And there's nothing wrong with throwing powerful NPCs and monsters into the game. If the PCs think they can always get away with anything without repercussions, that only encourages murderhoboism.

What’s not so good is when the PCs are constantly stuck sitting around while an NPC gets all the glory and action. Whatever’s happening at the time, the PCs are the center of the game.

As far as the PCs succeeding at their quest but the overall battle is lost…I’ve got mixed feelings on that. On the one hand, yes, it can make for a nice surprise and adds verisimilitude to the campaign. On the other hand, I don’t like the idea of events that happen no matter what the PCs do. If there’s no way for them to influence the events of the adventure, that takes away from the PCs actions.

I guess my answer is that it’s cool, but it can’t happen all the time, or it starts to feel like the story is unfolding regardless of anything the PCs do.

One simple way to handle this is to resolve the battle by random roll, and let the players' mission act as a modifier to that roll. "Great, you killed the enemy general and stole his battle plans. Good guys get +5 to their tactics roll, bad guys get -5. Oh noes! Bad guys rolled a natural 20! Despite your best efforts, the good guys are routed. General Sherman calls you over to his hideout and gives you a new mission: to buy time for the army to regroup. He informs you that there is a large enemy force of pursuing Ogre Magi that were sighted ten minutes ago at..."

 

[Sunseeker]

You get me wrong. Sorry if I'm not clear. The could play Merry and Pippin, but the camera will be on them. And they will learn about the things happening around from time to time.

Thank you all for the feedback.

There's nothing wrong with the players not being the center of the universe. But they do need to be the center of their story. Maybe it's the army that takes down the dragon with 200 level 1 human fighters-archers. But it's still the party who scouted out the location, lured the dragon into open terrain and made that takedown possible. That's the difference between the party being at the center of the universe, and the party being at the center of the story.

If the party isn't the center of the story, that is what I'm not interested in.

 

[Knight_Marshal]

The whole concept of Lord of the Rings Online is the player(s) are not the big heroes. You meet them, you do things in an area to make their journey easier and do things after they pass through other areas, but the Fellowship are the big heroes.

 

[Dire Bare]

This is a fairly standard trope in media. Think back to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Hamlet), or any one of a number of TV shows that take the action off of the main characters for an episode or two to give you the P.O.V. from peripheral characters. That said, the players are still the protagonists of your game- just not the larger narrative (whatever that might be).

I've always thought it would be fun to riff off the British/Euro comedy trope where the "heroes" are ridiculously incompetent, bumbling fools, and it's their servants who have all the brains and skills. Not only must you fight and defeat the villains, but you must do so despite your idiot "master's" interference, and ll the while he'll take credit for your hard work. Players could roll up their own "servant" and also run a different player's "master", maybe. Would definitely have to be a comedy-focused, side game!