D&D General Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?

[niklinna]

OK, I get it. To me such unmoored dramatic needs seem incredibly shallow and lack any proper emotional weight and of course it would be impossible for me to immerse into a character who doesn't even have rudimentary knowledge of their own past, but to each their own.

I do believe you are missing the point.

My post is an example of how far you can strip things down, not a recommendation to do so, nor even an assertion that people do strip things down that far (hint: many don't). But that isn't the point.

It's also a distillation of the idea that Story Now involves exploring things from and in the present moment. Some authors talk about how they just get an idea for a few characters in a scene and start writing. They know nothing about the characters' pasts, but figure it out as they write. Story Now takes that approach, and emphasizes creating and experiencing and immersing in story—including backstory—through play with the other folks at the table, rather than alone in your own room, or through following along in/exploring a prescripted adventure path (or sandbox or whatever).

(Emphasis is not exclusion, of course. You can mix all three of these approaches in a single game, fleshing out a character in some depth and with however much weight you want, hopping into an adventure path (or sandbox or whatever), and midway asserting some new fact about your character that seems cool, and then explore how that came to be and what it leads to with the other people in the moment.)

To me it seems you are taking my stripped-down example as definitional, and as a justification to dismiss the Story Now approach, outright and altogether. If "fear of heights and love of a sister" don't immediately lead you to wonder how those came about, and what problems they might cause, and want to explore them, well, to me, that seems incredibly shallow. But, if it would of course be impossible for you to immerse into that, well, to each their own.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Look. I'm working here with what I've been provided with. I assume nothing. I directly responded to the example provided.


If all I know about character is that they fear heights and love their sister and that's it, then to me it is shallow. If people feel otherwise, I'm not going to tell them they're wrong.


Right. And I didn't assume that Story Now characters are unmoored without knowledge of their history. I assumed they have backstories. Except that I was just provided that this is not necessarily the case. I was merely directly responding to what Nik said.

"Look guys, I dunno what you want, but I'm not about to assume several otherwise reasonable seeming people aren't just into trivially shallow roleplay. It's not my fault -- it's theirs."

 

[Ovinomancer]

No. There is no 'should'. I'm sure any approach is fine. I am merely not projecting my wishes on the text. And considering that D&D indeed has a long primacy of GM authorship tradition, had they wanted to break that they would have said so explicitly, and not expected to people to figure it out via a textual Rorschach test.

There's absolutely a should in the 4e DMG about player-authored quests.

And you are projecting your wishes. And they did explicitly break with that tradition -- there is nothing like those statements in any other edition, not even close. Hence, you projecting your wishes onto the text because you, for whatever reason, have decided that the tradition must be protected from even a suggestion that it hasn't always been strictly maintained.

Hypothetically, say you agree that this was a thing in 4e -- that 4e allowed for players to direct the goals of play at least a bit. What does this cost you? What trap do you fear? How does this lessen your play? I cannot fathom the need to look at these unique statements, hear a reading that differs from your assumption, and then decide that this must be denied. Not even opposed, but flatly denied as even possible.

 

[niklinna]

Look. I'm working here with what I've been provided with. I assume nothing. I directly responded to the example provided.

Actually you inferred a lot from the example and used highly judgmental language and emoji in your response.

Right. And I didn't assume that Story Now characters are unmoored without knowledge of their history. I assumed they have backstories. Except that I was just provided that this is not necessarily the case. I was merely directly responding to what Nik said.

There is no such thing as a Story Now character; Story Now is an approach to play in the moment. That said, the character in my example has no more than what I wrote to start with, and I explicitly pointed out that what little backstory could be inferred, had to be inferred from the two bare facts I provided. It's the process of finding out what hasn't been filled in yet, through play, that is the point of the Story Now approach.

Edit: Removed quote block I didn't respond to.

 

[Campbell]

Actually you inferred a lot from the example and used highly judgmental language and emoji in your response.






There is no such thing as a Story Now character; Story Now is an approach to play in the moment. That said, the character in my example has no more than what I wrote to start with, and I explicitly pointed out that what little backstory could be inferred, had to be inferred from the two bare facts I provided. It's the process of finding out what hasn't been filled in yet, through play, that is the point of the Story Now approach.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'd like to point out that the text about player authored quest is super short and vague and "come up with their own quests that are tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure," do not me necessarily imply massive creative input like some people seem to it interpret. It doesn't to me read like the player is expected to invent significant setting material. You of course could let the player to invent an entire secret organisation of extraplanar entities along with the goal of infiltrating to the organisation, but more conservative (and I'd argue intended) reading is merely that the player can declare the goal of infiltrating such an organisation when the organisation is introduced by he GM and the GM merely sets XP rewards etc for such a self imposed goal.

I agree that this is a valid interpretation. I look at this way, 4e is written the way it is because the torch bearing masses of grognards are NO JOKE. So it came down from on high, "don't lay it on too thick." Beyond that, philosophically its not a terrible thing to say "Hey, player, you can do this, you SHOULD do this, at least now and then, and you are CERTAINLY free to do this, but don't feel like its a burden we're laying on you to author all the quests in the game." In fact I never authored one single quest in all the time I ran 4e. I never even really NAMED quests in an explicit way, and I didn't bother with XP. Yet the game was still filled with quests! It really is a game OF quests, they are a natural outgrowth and necessary element of playing a Story Now type of 4e. Still, that isn't the whole of 4e and how it is presented. Quests are there for players, its informing them of that, that's all.

Honestly, in a more middle-of-the-road interpretation of 4e I would expect that the GM will introduce some sort of adventure, including a major quest and maybe a couple minor ones around the starting point. From there the GM would introduce at least one quest per adventure (which means every 2 levels or so maybe) and probably drop a lot of hints about other possible ones. Remember, the DMG says to encourage players to create quests! So, if you just follow the DMG and take it at face value, then more than 50% of quests are likely to be player initiated.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No. There is no 'should'. I'm sure any approach is fine. I am merely not projecting my wishes on the text. And considering that D&D indeed has a long primacy of GM authorship tradition, had they wanted to break that they would have said so explicitly, and not expected to people to figure it out via a textual Rorschach test.

I think they did want to break that primacy, but fear of fan reaction prevented them from going as far as they should have. I wish they had; it would have saved me a lot of time trying to get the game to work the way I wanted.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Perhaps if that's all you ever know, sure. But don't you think more will come up during play? Or did you assume it would not?

Of course not. But it seems like incredibly lacking starting point and one I literally couldn't meaningfully play immersivity.

Do you stop at page one of a book or the first couple minutes of a film and lament the shallow characters that have been introduced? Do you assume this is all you'll ever know of these people? Or do you expect you'll learn more?

What makes you assume the character doesn't know their own history? Of course they would, unless they were suffering from some form of amnesia or something. Of course the character will have a backstory. That it hasn't all been decided before play even begins doesn't prevent it from happening.

Yes, but if I as player do not know about the character's history, about their situation, I cannot inhabit their point of view!

You're assuming that only the pre-established backstory approach to characters can be satisfying for a player, or dramatic in play.

Instead of asking "I've always found I'm more invested in a character when I have a strong sense of who they are already; how does this minimal approach to backstory and character traits result in investment?" you instead decide to assume the worst. That it doesn't, and the person you're talking to has tastes that are beneath yours.

Only assumptions that I make are about my own feelings and preferences. I am not assuming how other needs to feel or approach these things. I could approach such tabula rasa characters from author stance, but not from immersive stance. And at least how some people (@Campbell) describe Story Now's strength for creating visceral immersive immediacy, author stance instead of immersive stance seems like a weird choice.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Look. I'm working here with what I've been provided with. I assume nothing. I directly responded to the example provided.


If all I know about character is that they fear heights and love their sister and that's it, then to me it is shallow. If people feel otherwise, I'm not going to tell them they're wrong.


Right. And I didn't assume that Story Now characters are unmoored without knowledge of their history. I assumed they have backstories. Except that I was just provided that this is not necessarily the case. I was merely directly responding to what Nik said.

I'm going to sidebar on this, as it's a great example of approaching a character as a concept versus a question. Needing to know past history in some sufficient resolution is necessary to present a character as concept. Here the goal of play is to evince this concept -- tragic hero, orphan with a heart of hold, etc. Play is showcasing concept, which is not expected to change.

Character as question needs far less backstory because play isn't about evincing a concept, but discovering the character. Backstory here is fluid, available as needed to fill in some immediately relevant to play detail. Here it's far more important to know what the central questions about this chatacter are than any detailed pre-story.

D&D has always favored character as concept. And if you're steeped in this, the quick hit of questions in the provided example isn't anywhere near enough to evince a concept. But that's not the point of SN play. Trying to evince a concept in SN is not ever going to work because that concept is going to be attacked in play and extremely likely to be shredded.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, the backstory doesn't of course need to be elaborate in sense that it has a lot of detail, but I really cannot imagine how one could establish dramatic needs of the character without somehow contextualising how they arise. I get that the point of Story Now is to do a lot of no mything and establish things in the play, but also as this establishing is supposed the be done by the GM framing things relevant to the characters, so that sort of seems to require knowing something about the characters!

As for multiple characters, one can create backstories as group effort and create existing connections. I'd imagine that if one wants dramatic needs of the character challenged, that might be good idea.

Yeah, the comment from Manbearcat was about complex backstory being 'poison', etc. I think it certainly does go contrary to Story Now. As for how to generate the conflict without backstory, I think Dungeon World is fairly clear about it, at least it comes out pretty easily in play. Since the GM is supposed to ask questions, he can simply ask the player "why are you here in Podunk?" or "Do you have any family that might be in danger from this Volcano?" Or the GM can just soft move things, as in revealing a 'doom' as a move (unpleasant truth, lol). Bonds can be fleshed out too in a similar way, or often if you have good players they might just spin a story, "Oh, I save the halfling, that's my bond. Once he was my sister's butler and you know it would bring dishonor on the family if we let one of our servants come to harm when we could help them!" (OK, the other player may now be grinding his teeth, but so it goes...).