The Narrative Campaign, Utopia or Doable?

[Voi_D_ragon]

So, first off, I never post here, mostly do stuff in the 5e forum, so you guys aren't my usual crowd (I think...?) Well, you're still fine, just I don't know your names probably. Yeah, shocking.

Anyway, I jump from my own pond come to this bigger pond of nerd know-how asking: Is it possible to run a campaign with a solid narrative behind it without the players screwing it up?

Not a railroaded campaign, not the "go write a book and leave your friends alone" campaign, but not the sandbox, "we'll see where it goes" campaign either.

Of course, you have to allow PCs to create their own opportunities in the game, and accept that not everything will go according to plan, players being players and all, but I have this dream that everything could be tied together by a single cohesive narrative without the need to invent too many side quests for when the group gets off track, or having to introduce ancient silver dragons in human form to explain plot points to avoid getting yet another lore-giver killed.

You get the players on board, ok. "You wanna play this game, that will follow a singular theme/idea/story without please screwing it up? You can still murder random people, but the story will greenlight them for you, you cool with that?" "Yeah sure DM, let's do this"

But how do you make sure you are able to tell your story? I don't even have many additional input on this, it's just the question here, because apart from getting good RPers to tell the story itself in a more satisfying manner, I got nothing. Help me :/

Or not, but please

 

[Nagol]

Certainly it is possible! I wouldn't use D&D for it myself. Dungeon World has better tools for narrative flow.

I have used D&D (and many other games systems as well) for similar campaigns. One of the campaign types that fit your description is a directed sandbox. THe premise of the campaign contains more direction than normal ("Hey guys, want to play a campaign where you are all privateers working for the Queen of Somewherelandia helping to thwart the evil King of Elsewhyr?").

 

[Kobold Boots]

It is possible, but in order to do it you need to have the players understand that the main plot is not expected to eliminate other plot.

I ran a game once that was very LoTR centric. Essentially I took the position of "Hey, what if "Here and Back Again" was a book in someone's library and was considered myth, even in a fantasy world." The players find a ring.. go. (oversimplification of the whole for the sake of this post)

All of the players agreed that this was something they wanted to further, but were concerned that they wouldn't be able to fully interact with the game world or have their own plots. So I just said, hey, you can have as much plot as you want - you just have to be cool with how it all plays out inside any given game session. Some sessions may just be main plot, some may just be your plots, most will overlap but I don't want to hear about how we didn't "do anything" if the session doesn't have much combat on some occasions.

End of the day, each player character had at least three plots going and most overlapped with other players in addition to the main storyline. It's a bunch of work on the DM's part to get it done but it was worth it for as long as the game lasted.

KB

 

[Blue]

It could work, though as [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] pointed out there are systems that are much better suited to that then D&D.

I personally go the other extreme. Before the start of the campaign I sketch out a few ideas - they don't need to be consistent with each other or fleshed out at all. Just so that I have some clues if the players come asking. Some I might be attached to, others might just be "hey, what about this".

Then comes session 0, where we work our characters and motivations and hooks - and that's going to form the basis for where the campaign is going. At that point I pick up need ideas from the players on where they want to go, see how the ideas they have can hook into my pre-campaign ideas (and which ones don't fit), and steer people who are looking for hooks and connections into those that others are already connecting into. I usually end up with three or so big arcs that have buy-in from several players, as well as ideas for character arcs to drop in.

During play, I lay pipe (as in the screenwriter meaning: put in foreshadowing) even before I know exactly how it's going to connect in. As the game goes on, players understanding of their own characters mature as well as the dynamics, and that changes things. Stories that come out also change the arcs. My campaign wrap-ups rarely match what I pictured at campaign start, evolving with play. My basic tenant is that until something hits the table, it's not true. So even if I've envisioned something, that can (and should) change to make a better story / more fun play unless it would invalidate something that's already come into play.

So, for my style, the idea of going in with a story to tell would not fit my personal brand of running a game. But even with that there's direction. "I'd like player to play heroes" or what have you. Taking that a step further to "I'd like to do our own twist on the legend of the defeat of Arawn" (or whatever) is something you can easily propose to players.

The joy of tabletop RPGs are there are so many good and valid ways to play, as long as everyone is enjoying themselves. So find some similarly-minded people and give it a try.

 

[Lanefan]

At first glance it almost sounds like the OP would be looking for much the same sort of player buy-in that someone running a hard AP would seek: "Guys, I've got Princes of the Apocalypse locked, loaded and ready to run. It's kind of a start-to-finish adventure path without too much room for side quests, but it's a cool story with exploration and mystery and some great battle scenes - and I really don't have time to do anything more elaborate. Who's in?"

Here it might hypothetically go something like: "Guys, I've got an idea for a D&D campaign I'd like to run. It'll be more single-story-based than usual, without much option for side quests and so forth, and it'll have perhaps more mystery-solving and less combat than what we're used to. Sound good? Who's in?"

Lan-"who is thinking of doing almost exactly this for his next campaign, whenever that is"-efan

 

[hawkeyefan]

[MENTION=6855956]Plutancatty[/MENTION] It can definitely be done. I’m running a 5E game that is essentially a continuation of several campaigns I’ve run in prior editions. It is essentially the story of the people who wind up opposing a dark god as he rises to power. So nearly everything that happens ties back to that main story.

We have a group of high level PCs that are kind of legendary heroes. These are the PCs from the 2E days when my friends and I first started playing. Another few high level PCs from a 3E campaign that we ran that ended, but which connected to the old one. A group of mid-level PCs for a 3E campaign we ran based in Chult that we never finished, and finally a new group of PCs that we started with 5E. Each of the groups of PCs is from a different world....Oerth, a homebrew world called Arta, and Toril (both the 3E Chult campaign and the 5E PCs are from Toril, actually). One of the PCs is from Golarion, and they recently visited Athas and ran into some old PCs we played in Dark Sun back in the day.

All their stories are connected. And they all tie into the main story of opposing this dark god and his followers. I allow the players to decide all the details they like of their PCs’ back story. I let the players add as many details to the game world as possible. Then I use those details and figure out how they interact with the main story of the villain I have. It’s really worked out quite well.

Doing it on a smaller scale is certainly doable. Think of it like a show like the X-Files. A lot of it is devoted to the main story of aliens and their presence on Earth. But you also get the one off episodes that have little or nothing to do with that story. The best advice I can give about this is that because te DM is so heavily involved narratively, you have to give the players as much room to create as possible. Be flexible. If a player wants his PC to be the black sheep of a noble family, maybe replace a noble family you had in mind with the one the player just came up with. Just because you’re telling a story doesn’t mean the players shouldn’t contribute.

 

[Sunseeker]

Sure, just ask your players not to.

Seems simple enough, but really asking your players to "play along" is not a tremendous burden to place upon them. Ask them to make characters that fit the world. Ask them to develop backgrounds that tie their characters to the setting (you'll need to provide setting info of course). Ask them to make characters who have generally favorable attitudes towards adventuring or at least the subject matter the campaign intends to cover.

You should of course, not expect any campaign to go from Point A to Point B perfectly smoothly. But asking the players not to muck up the campaign is only a fair request if the campaign isn't designed to shaft the players. A lot of complaints about railroads comes not from the fact that railroads lack choices, but that they impose choices upon the players. Sure, the party can wander off the rails in a railroad....but the difference is that the camera doesn't follow them, they have effectively ended the campaign by walking off stage.

I think it's simple, get players who are interested in the game you want to run and ask them to invest. Don't expect a perfect ride along the way, but if you can keep the players engaged with the ride, they'll care less that it's a ride.

 

[pemerton]

Is it possible to run a campaign with a solid narrative behind it without the players screwing it up?

Not a railroaded campaign

<snip>

I have this dream that everything could be tied together by a single cohesive narrative without the need to invent too many side quests for when the group gets off track, or having to introduce ancient silver dragons in human form to explain plot points to avoid getting yet another lore-giver killed.

You get the players on board, ok. "You wanna play this game, that will follow a singular theme/idea/story without please screwing it up? You can still murder random people, but the story will greenlight them for you, you cool with that?" "Yeah sure DM, let's do this"

I'm not quite sure what you've got in mind: you want a GM-driven story with loregivers, but it's not a railroad?

There are at least two active threads on this sub-form at the moment that might give you some ideas about different approaches (both start of on a slightlly different topic, but it doesn't take too long for the discussion of GM techniques, how to approach action resolution, the role of "lore", etc to become a main topic of discussion):

What is *worldbuilding* for?

What is an Experience Point Worth?​

I have run campaigns that I think might count as "narrative" campaigns in the way you mean - the PCs had a degree of depth, and the events of the campaign were focused on dramatic outcomes rather than "murder hobo" antics. I've used various systems, including two versions of D&D (AD&D Oriental Adventures, and 4e).

Here are three actual play reports from the 4e one. Is this the sort of thing you're talking about?

 

[The Black Ferret]

I think it can be done. I played in a Rolemaster campaign that had an over-reaching goal of defeating an evil sorcerer, with certain things that needed to be done to do it, but was otherwise a sandbox game. It sounds like you are going for a specific series of events leading up to the climax. The trick, in my view, is to make it so that the players, even if they agreed to play along and follow the narrative, feel they have some control over it, other than just making the die rolls. Make multiple paths to the goal, or to each major plot point in the story, and let them choose how to get there. Or give them specific events/goals that need to happen to lead up to the climax, but let them decide in what order to do them in. This tactic can also provide a safeguard against certain story events going badly due to bad die rolls or major player mistakes, in that you have a backup to fix it and keep the story going.

Actually, the narrative format of some of the better CRPGS, like the Elder Scrolls, the better Final Fantasy games, Grandia, et al, might provide a decent overview to this type of game. They are designed to further the plot at specific points or events, but also give the players freedom to do it at their pace or sometimes even in different order of events.

 

[Lanefan]

We have a group of high level PCs that are kind of legendary heroes. These are the PCs from the 2E days when my friends and I first started playing. Another few high level PCs from a 3E campaign that we ran that ended, but which connected to the old one. A group of mid-level PCs for a 3E campaign we ran based in Chult that we never finished, and finally a new group of PCs that we started with 5E. Each of the groups of PCs is from a different world....Oerth, a homebrew world called Arta, and Toril (both the 3E Chult campaign and the 5E PCs are from Toril, actually). One of the PCs is from Golarion, and they recently visited Athas and ran into some old PCs we played in Dark Sun back in the day.

All their stories are connected...

I just have to say that this is way cool!

Doing it on a smaller scale is certainly doable. Think of it like a show like the X-Files. A lot of it is devoted to the main story of aliens and their presence on Earth. But you also get the one off episodes that have little or nothing to do with that story.

You know, that's a very good analogy.

There's the "monster-of-the-week" episodes which equate to side quests and standalone adventures that may or may not ever have much to do with the main story/ies; and then there's the episodes which (try to) advance the main story/ies whether obviously or subtly, which equate to the more story-based adventures within the campaign.

Lanefan