Critical Role Story, rails, and running games

[prabe]

Hmm… This seems like great advice for how to run a game in the “Trad” style. But it’s… Kind of the opposite of what I want my games to be like. To roll with the analogy, I don’t want to irrigate a path to direct the water where I want it to go, I want to plant my crops where the river naturally flows.

My version of the analogy would be slightly different. I want to put everything on the hill, then pour the water on and see where it goes.

 

[billd91]

I don't think I understand the analogy. Anyone wanna take a crack at translating into an example of the shape of game play?

The Fellowship wants to take the One Ring to Mordor. The most efficient route for them is the pass of Caradhras. DM decides that's too easy so hits it with a blizzard, thinking they'll divert to the Gap of Rohan. Fellowship decides to try the next straightest path and go through Moria. DM chuckles behind his screen thinking this is even better than what he expected.

The Fellowship wants to split with some heading off to Mordor in secrecy with the others heading to bolster Minas Tirith. DM decides that's not complicated enough so he throws in an encounter with White Hand orcs all the way from Isengard who get lucky enough to grab a couple of hobbits and make a run for home. Now he can REALLY complicate up that straight line path the PCs want to chart through their challenges. He chortles behind his screen dreaming of the hard decision the Mordor branch of the Fellowship will have to make when they run into Gollum...

 

[overgeeked]

I don't really understand his premises about what he claims 'characters' or 'players' want, but I do feel like he's making an argument here for high illusionism where he tricks the players into believing that they made choices and were creative and really, they went along with the rails. The metaphor appears to be like those in an apparently open world game like 'Journey' or 'Half-Life 2' where when you are first playing the game you feel like you could have done anything and you actually came up with clever things to do, and as long as you stay on the path you felt like you made your own story, but really there is just one story that everyone is supposed to have because everything was on rails.

I thought the same at first. But I don't think he's talking about illusionism at all. The rest of the video provides a lot of context to the statement. He's talking about players giving him backstories and him mining the backstories for plot hooks and NPCs and dangling those NPCs and plot hooks in front of the characters to interact with. So the goal the characters are trying to achieve in the easiest way possible is a player-defined one and he's saying the referee is there to make achieving that goal interesting to play through by providing obstacles.

Hmm… This seems like great advice for how to run a game in the “Trad” style. But it’s… Kind of the opposite of what I want my games to be like. To roll with the analogy, I don’t want to irrigate a path to direct the water where I want it to go, I want to build alongside wherever the water naturally flows.

I'm definitely more in the realm of emergent story myself. But I don't think he's actually talking about story per se. It sounds more like he's talking about putting interesting obstacles in the players' path.

The trouble I have with this is, who decides what will make for an interesting and engaging story? In this analogy, seemingly it’s the DM as they’re the one irrigating the flow of the water. And that doesn’t quite sit right with me.

The player provides a backstory to the referee and the referee mines that for plot hooks and NPCs. The player provides the story hooks and the referee jazzes them up and makes sure completion of those hooks is interesting and surprising.

Earlier in that bit he talks about how he wants, as a player to not think about his character's arc. He wants immersion and to be in the character. I think he's coming at this same idea from the referee's side. Keep the players as immersed as possible and seed the plot hooks from their characters' backstories and play to see what happens.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm definitely more in the realm of emergent story myself. But I don't think he's actually talking about story per se. It sounds more like he's talking about putting interesting obstacles in the players' path.

The player provides a backstory to the referee and the referee mines that for plot hooks and NPCs. The player provides the story hooks and the referee jazzes them up and makes sure completion of those hooks is interesting and surprising.

Earlier in that bit he talks about how he wants, as a player to not think about his character's arc. He wants immersion and to be in the character. I think he's coming at this same idea from the referee's side. Keep the players as immersed as possible and seed the plot hooks from their characters' backstories and play to see what happens.

Oh, ok. If that’s the case, it seems like a terrible analogy for what he’s trying to describe. I’m gonna have to watch it in context.

 

[Celebrim]

I thought the same at first. But I don't think he's talking about illusionism at all. The rest of the video provides a lot of context to the statement. He's talking about players giving him backstories and him mining the backstories for plot hooks and NPCs and dangling those NPCs and plot hooks in front of the characters to interact with. So the goal the characters are trying to achieve in the easiest way possible is a player-defined one and he's saying the referee is there to make achieving that goal interesting to play through by providing obstacles.

Ok, but now all you are convincing me of is that it is a really bad analogy.

Based on what you claim he is saying, I think of this as content density - make sure your sandbox always has a lot of stuff to play with.

 

[overgeeked]

Oh, ok. If that’s the case, it seems like a terrible analogy for what he’s trying to describe. I’m gonna have to watch it in context.

Yeah, probably for the best. It's quite likely I'm utterly flubbing it and he means something else entirely.

If you're going by this taxonomy:

Six Cultures of Play

A blog about roleplaying games and theory focused on Mythras, Dungeons and Dragons, and OSR games.

retiredadventurer.blogspot.com

I think Brennan is more talking about OC / neo-trad. I mean, the author of that taxonomy even calls out Critical Role as a big source for OC / neo-trad. So...maybe.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, probably for the best. It's quite likely I'm utterly flubbing it and he means something else entirely.

I’ll give it a watch when I have some time.

If you're going by this taxonomy:

Six Cultures of Play

A blog about roleplaying games and theory focused on Mythras, Dungeons and Dragons, and OSR games.

retiredadventurer.blogspot.com

I think Brennan is more talking about OC / neo-trad. I mean, the author of that taxonomy even calls out Critical Role as a big source for OC / neo-trad. So...maybe.

Yeah, Neo-Trad is probably a better fit. Though, as the author says, the categories are permeable, and personally it seems to me like CR blends elements of Trad and Neo-Trad. Or maybe I just don’t understand Trad at all.

 

[overgeeked]

I’ll give it a watch when I have some time.

Cool.

Yeah, Neo-Trad is probably a better fit. Though, as the author says, the categories are permeable, and personally it seems to me like CR blends elements of Trad and Neo-Trad. Or maybe I just don’t understand Trad at all.

I think the difference is the position of the referee in relation to the players and their authority over the setting, game, world, story, etc.

If I'm reading the taxonomy correctly (certainly not a given), then it's something like:

In trad, it's very much the referee is in charge and it's their world and their story that the players are moving through. The Hickman Revolution is trad. The referee is the primary storyteller and is there to tell the players a story. "Here's the module we're running, bring whatever characters you want. But this is the story." Characters are effectively interchangeable as their backstories (if they have any) don't really matter. "I'm the referee and this is my story."

In neo-trad, that relationship is almost flipped. The players share more storytelling responsibility as they provide characters with backstories and the referee builds the story from those backstories and guides the players through the story they want to work through...along with elements the referee wants to include. The referee still contributes and plays the world and NPCs etc, but they're not the primary storyteller in the sense that they originated the story. They take on ideas from the players and weave them together to make a story. "I'm the referee but this is our story."

 

[overgeeked]

There’s a great bit at 1:05:30 where Matt talks about the player cycle of freedom and rules. Very relevant to a lot of conversations I see popping up.

The bit I’m referencing is this:

Matt Mercer. “This is a testament to why I love playing with newer players. There’s a cycle I’m noticing, through the years of playing. Like a player cycle. When you first begin, you don’t know the boundaries that a lot of experienced players expect or understand. The more you know the game, the more you tend to, more often than not, stay within the confines of what the game establishes as the rules. When you’re new to it, you don’t really understand that so you take wider swings, you make stranger choices. You really kind of push against those boundaries because you don’t know where the boundaries are. You’re like a kid learning to how to walk for the first time and bumping into the furniture. And it’s wonderful, and eventually you kind of fall into those lines and not always, but sometimes you find yourself kind of subconsciously sticking, coloring within the lines because you’ve learned to do so. Then over time you begin to realize you’ve been doing that. And then you go back to being weird again. And that’s my other favorite point. It’s new players or extremely experienced players who have come back to reclaim their ‘stupid’ youth as players.”

That strikes me as very much a “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” kinda thing. Try whatever. Don’t worry about the rules. They don’t really matter and they get in your way. Limit you, even if subconsciously. You’re playing a character who’s supposed to be a real person in a real place in a real situation. Have them do whatever you think they’d do in that situation. Not what the rules say you can do. And that’s why I love rules light games and FKR-style play. I don’t want there to be lines. I want to just color.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I’ll give it a watch when I have some time.

Yeah, Neo-Trad is probably a better fit. Though, as the author says, the categories are permeable, and personally it seems to me like CR blends elements of Trad and Neo-Trad. Or maybe I just don’t understand Trad at all.

Run a WotC AP. That's solidly Trad. Trad is exploring the GM's setting/plot as a primary point of play. GM setting/plot here includes published settings/adventures. Brennan's analogy is solidly in Trad.

Neotrad is a different thing, where the GM's job is to give the PC's their big moments. Setting is either canonized with the PCs as disrupters becoming the stars (Original Character play) or is serving PC arcs.

Both Trad and Neotrad are heavily GM centered, though, with the GM as final arbiter, but the expected role and things arbitrate for change from the GM's ideas (Trad) to the player's ideas (Neotrad). 3.x was leaned Neotrad because it was expected that the GM adhere to the rules and player builds could easily dominate the rules-directed content. 5e is heavily Trad, with weakened PC build options and heavy reliance on GM as source of fiction/rulings.

CR is a mix of Trad (finding cool things about the GM's setting) and Neotrad (clearly designed arcs centering PCs special things).

Quite a lot of what I'm seeing in 5e recently and suggestions for tge upcoming edition suggest that the game is swinging back toward Neotrad after it's large swing to Trad.

All of the above are general trends and are not meant to say that you can't do whatever at your table. It's looking at how the systems operate to enhance a culture based on how much you'd have to push on it to go a different route. 5e does Trad effortlessly, Neotrad with intent of the table, Classic poorly, OSR with effort, and there's no support for Story Now.