Is the DM the most important person at the table

[Fenris-77]

Sure, I suppose. Per NPC that wouldn't cut much time off the construction and would potentially introduce anachronisms you'd have to be watchful for. If the campaign uses a few hundred NPCs the player sketch out, the savings might add up.

You, sir, are missing the point. Of course the DM can come up with that. What he can't do is port the knowledge directly into his player's heads. Or design an NPC that specifically represents an important goal or connection to one of the characters (well, he can...). Or give them the same sense of connection and ownership they get form doing it themselves. It's not just NPCs, it's factions, politics, mysteries, anything and everything.

Also, it can be hard to be really creative all the time. I came up with that NPC on the fly, and I like it a lot, but if I did it six or seven times in a row it would lose a little something.

Anyway, the point isn't simply time savings up front, or even in general, although that will happen. When the players already know the faces, their role playing will be that much stronger. They will more quickly connect NPC/Faction to circumstance, or identify an NPC to go to for advice, information, or whatever. They might identify a mystery built into the setting they want to explore. Or they might decide to wade into faction politics and upset the apple cart. All things they already know about. That kind of character driven play doesn't happen as much without prior knowledge.

How many times have any of us decried the lack of player knowledge that accurately matches what the character would have? This is one solution.

 

[Nagol]

You, sir, are missing the point. Of course the DM can come up with that. What he can't do is port the knowledge directly into his player's heads. Or design an NPC that specifically represents an important goal or connection to one of the characters (well, he can...). Or give them the same sense of connection and ownership they get form doing it themselves. It's not just NPCs, it's factions, politics, mysteries, anything and everything.

Also, it can be hard to be really creative all the time. I came up with that NPC on the fly, and I like it a lot, but if I did it six or seven times in a row it would lose a little something.

Anyway, the point isn't simply time savings up front, or even in general, although that will happen. When the players already know the faces, their role playing will be that much stronger. They will more quickly connect NPC/Faction to circumstance, or identify an NPC to go to for advice, information, or whatever. They might identify a mystery built into the setting they want to explore. Or they might decide to wade into faction politics and upset the apple cart. All things they already know about. That kind of character driven play doesn't happen as much without prior knowledge.

How many times have any of us decried the lack of player knowledge that accurately matches what the character would have? This is one solution.

Sure! Building player engagement is a great goal! Not the one we've been discussing though. It is certainly a laudable result even if it doesn't save much time. And having the player build NPCs their PC should be familiar with is also terrific.

You still have to sift through them for anachronisms eg. "Crown and Anchor? Wasn't that established as the HQ of the rival guild? He'd end up 6 inches shorter if he tried to hang out there!"

 

[Fenris-77]

Hah, it was the first X and X pub name that popped into my head. There's a Crown and Anchor in Buffalo that is reputed to have invented the deep fried chicken wing. Anyway, back on track.

People wanted to know how to reduce prep and offload some narrative responsibility onto the players. This approach does that through some time savings up front, and a bunch of prep time saved on an ongoing basis because the usual result of the co-op approach is better engagement with a narrower set of arcs. If you layer on some better mechanics to reward character and goal-oriented roleplaying and character decision making you start to move in a significant way toward a more balanced responsibility for the narrative. It gets even better if you can let go of the reins a little and allow the players some direct input into the fiction somehow. Personally, I like a BitD flashback mechanic for this, modified a little for D&D, but there are a ton of ways to do it.

 

[Nagol]

Hah, it was the first X and X pub name that popped into my head. There's a Crown and Anchor in Buffalo that is reputed to have invented the deep fried chicken wing. Anyway, back on track.

People wanted to know how to reduce prep and offload some narrative responsibility onto the players. This approach does that through some time savings up front, and a bunch of prep time saved on an ongoing basis because the usual result of the co-op approach is better engagement with a narrower set of arcs. If you layer on some better mechanics to reward character and goal-oriented roleplaying and character decision making you start to move in a significant way toward a more balanced responsibility for the narrative. It gets even better if you can let go of the reins a little and allow the players some direct input into the fiction somehow. Personally, I like a BitD flashback mechanic for this, modified a little for D&D, but there are a ton of ways to do it.

Roleplay and decision-making don't affect prep time much. It can affect how much the GM feels necessary to sketch out in broad terms, if the GM simply can't know which way the players will jump in the next session.

I had one group that would announce where they expected to go at the end of a session. And then they would do something arbitrarily different when the next session came around. It wasn't malicious, the group had poor discipline and a power struggle between certain players who wanted to accomplish entirely different goals. It did tend to waste my prep time, however.

Player input works in some types of campaigns better than others. One of the ways I often introduce extra player input is through Lion Rampant's Whimsy Cards (as an aside the only card I have never seen played is the "Take over as GM" card). I've adopted them for many campaigns over the years where the primary focus isn't player exploration. One advantage the cards offer is they are used during table play. I find offering players opportunities to engage with the game away from the table gets some interest that remains theoretical.

Number and width of arcs depends much more on the player mix than anything else. I've had games where the players helped construct the background and built a weave of interconnections pre-play -- only to have the 6 players jump into 7 different directions once play began.

 

[Nagol]

Hah, it was the first X and X pub name that popped into my head. There's a Crown and Anchor in Buffalo that is reputed to have invented the deep fried chicken wing. Anyway, back on track.

People wanted to know how to reduce prep and offload some narrative responsibility onto the players. This approach does that through some time savings up front, and a bunch of prep time saved on an ongoing basis because the usual result of the co-op approach is better engagement with a narrower set of arcs. If you layer on some better mechanics to reward character and goal-oriented roleplaying and character decision making you start to move in a significant way toward a more balanced responsibility for the narrative. It gets even better if you can let go of the reins a little and allow the players some direct input into the fiction somehow. Personally, I like a BitD flashback mechanic for this, modified a little for D&D, but there are a ton of ways to do it.

I think there's a Crown and Anchor everywhere. The point is more that what each player knows/remembers will vary and someone* needs to be tasked with making certain the whole remains coherent.



* Someone who has the official history/notes and can make the all the cross connections. Not necessarily the GM, but often the GM.

 

[Fenris-77]

I never said it was a cure-all, and players excel at the throwing of curve balls regardless of what is being played. I should probably be specific about what I use this same for myself - the kind of game I'm talking about is very urban for the most part, with the intention of that urban setting being the primary setting for a longer term game. That's one of the reasons I only loosely tether my initial prep to specific locations. I prefer to build story elements around characters, who are naturally mobile.

If the players take responsibility for crafting the parts of the setting that are naturally indexed to their character the "who remembers what" problem is less of an issue. The right characters generally have the correct setting knowledge. Obviously I'm not offering this idea as a one-size fits all answer. Someone asked "how would that even work" so I threw out a couple of ideas.

I like the cards idea. Inspired by Castle Falkenstein I'm currently monkeying around with using a tarot deck for a bunch of stuff.

 

[Lanefan]

And, yes, if you have a constructed campaign with secrets hidden from the player but still unalterable aspects of the fictional world, then it is impossible to expect players to collaborate effectively, since you cannot allow any creation that violates the hidden secrets or your prepared, but unplayed, plot points and the players cannot know enough about things they don't know to be useful in providing information.

Exactly.

And seeing as any campaign I ever run or play in will, I hope, feature a great many DM-side secrets that the players will learn only through play, this whole concept of player-side setting construction becomes kinda moot; with the exception of minor pieces that won't and can't impact the main plot.

Again, you've defined success so that it only favors your beliefs. The counter argument is don't start with Conspiracy-X if you're going to build a collaborative game. Ruling that out to start seems more like sitting on the scale than placing a thumb on it.

Not just Conspiracy-X; your take here would rule out just about any game - regardless of system - that involves the PCs solving mysteries and learning as they go.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Umbran]

Ah, sorry, it's hard to tell sometimes if a complaint is from the complainant or just a white knight who then casually discards the argument when challenged. My apologies.

Mod Note:

So... next time, if you think someone is inauthentic, rather than answer in kind, and then cast vague aspersions around while "apologizing"... just don't engage.

Really, folks. If someone isn't your cup of tea, don't go snark. Just walk away.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Of the top 100 reasons TSR drove off a cliff in the 90s, White Wolf isn’t in the top 1,000.

It ranks somewhere south of “not understanding they had art assets” and barely north of “extravagant spending on 2-ply toilet paper.”

Wasn't really about how TSR failed as a business but about how the market looked at that time.