D&D General No Fixed Location -- dynamically rearranging items, monsters, and other game elements in the interests of storytelling

[Lanefan]

if I lose 4 characters in 4 sessions, my feeling would be that i need to get better

If I lose 4 characters in 4 sessions I'm visiting the dice store, because clearly I need new ones.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well put; though I'd add a third branch, perhaps less common but still significant: where the game is a vehicle for a hard-rail story that's mostly pre-set before play starts - a campaign intended to consist only of a single published AP. The story isn't arrived at collaboratively, nor does it organically emerge: it was there all along, just waiting to be played through.

I’d consider that a subset of group 1. The players and the DM are still collaborators in the creation and telling of the story, it’s just that the outline was written by someone else. A published AP is not a complete story, it’s just the rough skeleton of one, and that can be very helpful for groups who want to play in this collaborative storytelling style but don’t have the time or energy to invent a story from scratch.

The reason I consider these variants of the same style rather than two different styles is that they appeal to the same forms of engagement. Likewise, I would consider a group playing in a sandbox module like Isle of Dread or whatever to be a subset of the emergent story style.

Myself, I'm solidly in the second group here, where the story arises organically out of the players' engagement with the setting as laid down by the DM.

I think of it like Ocarina of Time vs. Breath of the Wild. One has a set story that you play to experience, the other has a bunch of challenges and systems that you can interact with however you like. Both are enjoyable, just in very different ways.

 

[Lanefan]

I think part of the problem of communicating these concepts is how "story" is defined. To me, "story" is what emerges from the players interacting with the environment (or the plot). What they do and how things turn out - that's the story. Others seem to be implying "plot" is "story" and this gets things a bit muddled when DMs who use different approaches talk to each other.

Well put.

To me, I suppose 'plot' is what the DM* might have in mind (in a more or less vague manner) before play, and 'story' is what comes out the other end after play; and the story may or may not have much if any resemblance to the original plot.

* - or even one or more players, if they or their PCs are working on a specific agenda of their own within the game.

An easy way to think about it in my view is that "story" is the byproduct of play when the players engage with the environment (in a location-based adventure) or the plot (in an event-based adventure). The complication that an event-based adventure has is keeping the players on the plot. Thus, the DM sometimes needs to drop extra clues or move stuff around in order to keep the players and their characters on it. (Using story-based advancement or possibly milestone XP also helps as an incentive.)

Or - and I seem to be bringing this up a lot, in different ways - rathen than worrying so much about keeping the players/PCs on track the DM has to instead be ready, willing and able to allow the players/PCs to lose the plot completely if that's what ends up happening; and if necessary have something else (or several something elses!) on the boil in the background to which hooks can lead.

The DM can then work the original plot back in later as an outgrowth of the new plot, if she wants.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I’d consider that a subset of group 1. The players and the DM are still collaborators in the creation and telling of the story, it’s just that the outline was written by someone else. A published AP is not a complete story, it’s just the rough skeleton of one, and that can be very helpful for groups who want to play in this collaborative storytelling style but don’t have the time or energy to invent a story from scratch.

About a quarter of the way through Tomb of Annihilation we decided it would be more fun to own a ship and sail the seas than it would be to hack through jungle and explore tombs. We eventually go back on track but certainly left the main story on pause for a bit while we got it out of our system.

The only RPG I can think of that I would still run in the style that Monayuris describes would be a session of Paranoia. This is because there is no expectation the adventure will continue, no back or ongoing character story, and because each player has 6 lives to spend during the adventure.

 

[Lanefan]

This is pretty much how I set up my sandbox as well. The players start off in a low level area, surrounded by interesting locations and plothooks that are level appropriate. As they travel further, the difficulty increases gradually. They will encounter challenges that may be too tough, but which will totally be waiting for them later when they are a little stronger.

Yep, and they might hear about (or, if very unlucky, run into) challenges way way beyond their pay grade. (an early 1st level party once saw a tower in the distance and decided to check it out, not realizing it was home to a full Lich and her assorted guards. Those who survived first meeting with the Troll door guards fled and never returned. )

On top of that I have a main plot and some side plots. From time to time I will drop events into the campaign that move the main plot or side plots forward, or dangle a plothook in front of the players, and which do not rely on any specific location. This allows the players to go wherever they want, and chase whatever sideplots they want, and still also progress the main plot from time to time, and encounter new quests. This prevents the campaign from ever reaching a point of boredom, where there is simply nothing left to do in a particular location. I make sure that the plot and quests appears wherever the players are, on top of things that are already in that location by design.

All great! I'll sometimes have two or even three "main" plots that may or may not interweave, in part because I'm usually running multi-party campaigns. As the campaigns age the main plots tend to take over as the smaller side plots either fall away or get resolved.

I'm also ready at any time to throw in a side-trek adventure (usually, for parties of a certain level, involving bashing lots of Giants) that largely has nothing to do with anything, just for a change of pace.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

My understanding of the two words...

Plot: The things happening in my world that are going on "behind the scenes" which determine why certain groups or individuals act in the way they do and what their motivation is. The PCs can engage in anywhere from 0-100% of the plot depending on their interests and choices.

Story: The narrative created by the PCs as they interact with the world presented to them. There may be tons of story totally unrelated to my plot. Its not uncommon for the players at my table to spend game and real time investing in something completely outside of what is expected. In one campaign we decided that we would open a combination Temple of Torm and a Sandwich Shoppe. We then spend a not-small amount of time in the campaign building up our Sandwich Shoppe business. The GM then added plot to incorporate the things we were focusing time on and to tie it with the existing plot.

 

[Lanefan]

I’d consider that a subset of group 1. The players and the DM are still collaborators in the creation and telling of the story, it’s just that the outline was written by someone else. A published AP is not a complete story, it’s just the rough skeleton of one, and that can be very helpful for groups who want to play in this collaborative storytelling style but don’t have the time or energy to invent a story from scratch.

Ah. I thought you meant group 1 to be much closer to the "story now" style, which is about as far away from the hard-AP style as you can get.

I think of it like Ocarina of Time vs. Breath of the Wild....

Sorry, lost on me, as I've never heard of either of these.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sorry, lost on me, as I've never heard of either of these.

Zelda

 

[iserith]

Or - and I seem to be bringing this up a lot, in different ways - rathen than worrying so much about keeping the players/PCs on track the DM has to instead be ready, willing and able to allow the players/PCs to lose the plot completely if that's what ends up happening; and if necessary have something else (or several something elses!) on the boil in the background to which hooks can lead.

The DM can then work the original plot back in later as an outgrowth of the new plot, if she wants.

That's just not feasible or desirable for some groups, particularly if they are trying to experience the storyline of a published module or a plot written by the DM who doesn't want to throw his or her prep out the window.

 

[Fenris-77]

That's just not feasible or desirable for some groups, particularly if they are trying to experience the storyline of a published module or a plot written by the DM who doesn't want to throw his or her prep out the window.

Well, I do hate to throw out prep, and while I've been talking a lot about DM agency in this thread, the most important thing to me is the desire of the players to succeed in following that storyline. If they want to be on track it's not hard to make that happen without undue deus ex machina, but trying to do when the players don't care or don't want to would be a different story, and closer to what a lot of people in this thread have a problem with.