In your RPGing, who chooses the antagonists/opposition - players or GM?

[pemerton]

Most RPGing involves conflict and opposition as a crucial component of the fiction: the player characters are trying to overcome some sort of opposition or antagonism.

Not all RPGing is all antagonism all the time - eg if a group spends an hour settling equipment lists for the PCs that is more likely to involve referring to lists and transcribing information than engaging with antagonism in a shared fiction; or if a group spends an hour in which the players all, in character, speak to one another about their recent deeds and make plans for future deeds, there may not be much confronting of opposition in that episdoe of play.

Still, I think it's fair to say that opposition/antagonism is pretty important to most RPGing, although of course it comes in different forms: opposed people/creatures who want to thwart the PCs' goals; people/creatures who have goals that the PCs are opposed to; places that the PCs wish to enter or pass through but that are not easily navigated (due to geography, or architecture, or fixtures like traps, etc); and no doubt many other forms too.

Because the opposition/antagonism is a component of a fiction, someone has to come up with it. And because it is related to the PCs in a hostile fashion - it is at odds with what they want - someone has to establish that relationship, of PC wants as a component of the fiction to this other, oppositional, component of the fiction.

In your RPGing, who does all this? And how is it done?

 

[prabe]

Usually in the games I've been involved in, it's been the PCs deciding on their goals, and the GM putting opposition in front of them. Occasionally a PC's goal has been to take out one or more specific NPCs--usually a goal that arises in play, but occasionally something established at the start.

 

[pemerton]

Usually in the games I've been involved in, it's been the PCs deciding on their goals, and the GM putting opposition in front of them. Occasionally a PC's goal has been to take out one or more specific NPCs--usually a goal that arises in play, but occasionally something established at the start.

The NPC who is to be "taken out" - who would normally decide that that NPC is part of the shared fiction?

And the other PC goals - do you mean that the players decides their PCs' goals? And if so, are there any parameters around that - often goals presuppose details of the fiction beyond the evident genre tropes, and so if the players decide their PCs goals does that mean they also get to establish the relevant fictional details?

 

[prabe]

The NPC who is to be "taken out" - who would normally decide that that NPC is part of the shared fiction?

I've seen and run games where the GM introduced the NPC, and where the player/s did.

And the other PC goals - do you mean that the players decides their PCs' goals? And if so, are there any parameters around that - often goals presuppose details of the fiction beyond the evident genre tropes, and so if the players decide their PCs goals does that mean they also get to establish the relevant fictional details?

I meant what I said--the PCs decide their goals--but you would see it as the players deciding (and that's not an argument I think it's worthwhile for us to have). If it's something being established at the start of a campaign, it's probably something the player/s and the GM are negotiating into the world; if it's something arising during a campaign it's almost certainly something established in the fiction they're deciding to go after.

 

[payn]

Are you asking if the players can make up the fiction of NPCs that are in opposition? Like the player's character wants to stop local bandits and so then makes up who the local bandit leader is. The GM then runs the bandit leader based on the players descriptions. As opposed to the GM making up all the details of the bandit leader NPC and the player reacts?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I like when it’s a mix of both GM and players who come up with the antagonists.

 

[cmad1977]

Both.

 

[billd91]

It's a bit of both - there may be some big movers and shakers pulling levers all over the place as they pursue their plans, but PCs have a way of finding and making antagonists from any NPC they want. After all, I may have wheels in motion that are on my side of the screen, but the PCs are in control over how they react to whomever they meet or seek out. If they want to make them antagonists, they can certainly give it a try.

 

[darkbard]

I'm involved in two Dungeon World games at the moment, one as GM, the other as a player (the latter being the game @Manbearcat has mentioned a couple of times).

In the game I'm GMing, wherein my wife is the sole player, her character a Svirfneblin Ranger-Psion, there are two primary antagonists established across four sessions so far and some preplay discussion between us. One is a Tiefling military officer and ambassador who was introduced because my wife expressed a desire to explore the relationship between her character and another PC idea she had for a Tiefling Immolater; the ambassador is served by the latter figure as a personal bodyguard, and my wife's PC has just been purchased as a slave in service to the ambassador. Will she escape? Kill her master? Forge a bond with the Immolator? TBD.

The second antagonist in this game is the lich Ny-Hor, first Pharaoh of the Tiefling empire. When the PC was reduced to 0 HP in an early session and made a 7-9 Last Breath role (indicating the presentation of an opportunity to bargain with Death at its Black Gates), I created the villain and placed a geas on the PC to destroy its phylactery so Death can reclaim the lich.

In the game where I am player, there have been several antagonists. Initially, my Paladin encountered a guide whose reputation was being savaged by an exploitative and unscrupulous employer. In return for use of the guide's raft, my Paladin promised to confront the employer and vouch for the guide's efforts and honor (player chosen antagonist).

My wife initially described her PC as a Wizard who reads the filaments of the magic Tapestry that subtends the world, and her growing knowledge that the Tapestry is being destroyed. We have since come to learn that an extra planar entity known as the Devourer is consuming the world's magic (player chosen).

Further, when watching a marvel of a ten-year-old prodigy construct magical toys in a marketplace, we noticed a bespectacled onlooker sketching the girl. The onlooker then asked to sketch my wife's PC, herself but 17 or 18 and a practitioner of magic. My Paladin sensed evil in this figure, and he has since been revealed to be a powerful necromancer who extends his life by stealing the force from magical youths. (So kinda both GM chosen and player chosen?)

Finally, while seeking to bring news to a widowed rancher of the grisly death of her husband and small children, an exploitative rancher harassing the family came into play for two sessions as an antagonist. If I recall correctly, he was introduced as a complication for a failed roll by the GM.

 

[pemerton]

Initially, my Paladin encountered a guide whose reputation was being savaged by an exploitative and unscrupulous employer. In return for use of the guide's raft, my Paladin promised to confront the employer and vouch for the guide's efforts and honor (player chosen antagonist).

Fully player chosen? Who introduced the unscrupulous employer into the fiction? The language of "encountered" suggests that, at the table, the GM was narrating these events and the existence of these NPCs. Is that right?

My wife initially described her PC as a Wizard who reads the filaments of the magic Tapestry that subtends the world, and her growing knowledge that the Tapestry is being destroyed. We have since come to learn that an extra planar entity known as the Devourer is consuming the world's magic (player chosen).

Again, how did the Devourer become part of the shared fiction? Was this posited by your wife? Or you? - I know that "ask questions" is a standard GM technique in DW. Or was this GM narration?