D&D General Player-generated fiction in D&D

[Clint_L]

i know this isn't a + thread but do you have any intention to actually contribute or are you just here to pointlessly trash on 4e because it wasn't your preferred game?

Also, this isn’t a 4e Thread. Player generated content is vital to our 5e game and to just about any RPG I GM.

At a basic level, any story needs the characters to have wants. And any interesting story needs the characters to have needs that are not always aligned with those wants. Those elements have to come from the players. Or you’re basically playing a board game.

 

[Nikosandros]

Can you say anything about why?

I've given my answer to that for possible action declarations - but I'm curious about backstory and the focus of the action.

That is actually a very good question, but I don't think that I have a good answer for it. I have some of that, but not too much. Why? I guess that since neither AD&D nor 5e (IMHO) particularly encourage it, both the GM and the players in my groups tend to play those game "traditionally".

 

[Clint_L]

Here's my take on "try not to say no" in the context of skill challenges:

There's a well-established approach to RPGing, in which the GM has a conception of the fictional situation that they have only partly shared with the players. When the players ask a question (say, "Is there a market stall at the foot of the wall?") or declare an action, the GM answers and adjudicates by reference to that conception. My experience is that this produces an approach to play where the players declare actions that are "low stakes" in terms of risk, but are likely to prompt the GM to tell them more, so that they can enrich their conception of the situation to bring it more into line with the GM's.

A classic dungeon exemplifies the preceding paragraph, but is by no means the only sort of fiction and situation-design that does so. Things like "This guard is too upright to be bribed", "This king is too important to give the PCs an audience", "This cavern is too wide to be jumped", "There is no sustenance to be found in this desert" - all as decisions made by the GM that generate adjudication of declared actions - are examples of a sort that I often see discussed.

"Try not to say no" is an injunction not to use the approach just described. The situation is what has been presented, not other stuff the GM is imagining. "Is there are market stall?" - either say 'yes', or else call for a Streetwise check (do you know where the market stalls are?).

The 4e DMG2 spells this out a bit more (p 16): "player suggestions must remain consistent with the world's previously established continuity. . . . This stipulation only applies to facts about the world that have come up in play. You can contradict a detail about your setting that, so far, appears only in your notes."

This "try not to say no" approach reduces the "puzzle-solving" element of play. My view is that it tends to increase the "vibrant shared fiction" element. This is what skill challenges are for: to create vibrant fiction with reasonably clear stakes and consequences that flow from those stakes.

What if the player asks, “is there a ladder?”

The kind of story first style that you are describing works great with certain types of players, in my experience. A market stall implies a creative, cinematic idea of how the story could progress in a fun way. A challenge that I have found with such approaches is that they depend on players not defaulting to the easy, obvious route.

As you point out, the puzzle solving element of play is reduced. That’s only worthwhile if the story element is enhanced.

 

[Nikosandros]

The kind of story first style that you are describing works great with certain types of players, in my experience.

That's a very good point. I've had players that are quite uncomfortable with having to make up fiction and prefer to have the GM provide it for them at all times.

 

[KYRON45]

Is there anything to the thought that when we categorize things like, trad...neo-trad...story now etc. (terms i have never and will never use outside of this forum) that we are pigeon holing ourselves to play a "certain way"?
More often than not a players idea is way better than anything I can come up with. When 5 players put their heads together than can absolutely blow my mind with some of the stuff they can come up with. What is it called when the DM adjusts on the fly to well thought out suggestions from the players? What is it called when the players are better at playing than the DM is at DMing?
Doesn't being rigid in what were doing that saying NO regularly often back us into a corner?

 

[Clint_L]

Is there anything to the thought that when we categorize things like, trad...neo-trad...story now etc. (terms i have never and will never use outside of this forum) that we are pigeon holing ourselves to play a "certain way"?
More often than not a players idea is way better than anything I can come up with. When 5 players put their heads together than can absolutely blow my mind with some of the stuff they can come up with. What is it called when the DM adjusts on the fly to well thought out suggestions from the players? What is it called when the players are better at playing than the DM is at DMing?
Doesn't being rigid in what were doing that saying NO regularly often back us into a corner?

I find that the more power players have in the story, the more fun I have as a GM.

In the olden days, I would basically create a mystery, and the players would try to solve it. Different outcomes were possible, but most of my surprises came from dice rolls.

Now, I dunno where a campaign is going. At best, I have an idea of the current direction, and I usually have a good enough idea of where the next session is headed to let me plan ahead and build sets and stuff. I am excited to see where the story goes - I can't wait for the next session because I want to see what happens and where we are headed next.

It means I am always working - I can't just plan a campaign and then sit back. I'm much more actively engaged.

I think a lot of long-running campaigns have lasted precisely because GMs allow scope for player choices to really matter.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Is there anything to the thought that when we categorize things like, trad...neo-trad...story now etc. (terms i have never and will never use outside of this forum) that we are pigeon holing ourselves to play a "certain way"?
More often than not a players idea is way better than anything I can come up with. When 5 players put their heads together than can absolutely blow my mind with some of the stuff they can come up with. What is it called when the DM adjusts on the fly to well thought out suggestions from the players? What is it called when the players are better at playing than the DM is at DMing?
Doesn't being rigid in what were doing that saying NO regularly often back us into a corner?

Is there anything whatsoever? Possibly. I don't think there's very much to it though.

This would be like saying, "Is there anything to the thought that when we categorize things like Italian, Basque, Provençal, etc., that we are pigeonholing ourselves to eat a 'certain way'?" That is: Yes! The whole point of having a defined cuisine is so that you can produce dishes with a particular flavor, style, and set of ingredients with relative consistency, up to the limits of one's cooking skills. But the fact that we have definitions for these dishes and cuisines is not a straitjacket. It is a useful tool for talking about the flavors produced in our food. Treating food as though it were all one massive melange would be less useful. Are the categories artificial? Yes, certainly, they're things humans decided to create. Do people cross those boundaries? Sometimes! That's where fusion cuisine comes from, and where interesting new dishes can be born--pad thai was developed in the 20th century and couldn't exist without foods from both Asia and the Americas.

RPG terms like the ones you scorn are very similar. They tell us information about what one's interest is in playing, or what experience the game (be it a campaign, a system, or something else) offers. They are artificial, as most human categorization systems are artificial, but just because they're artificial doesn't mean they're useless or harmful. It means that we should keep in mind that they were invented for some reason, and we should try to know what that reason is and why. Chesterton's Fence and such.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Is there anything to the thought that when we categorize things like, trad...neo-trad...story now etc. (terms i have never and will never use outside of this forum) that we are pigeon holing ourselves to play a "certain way"?
More often than not a players idea is way better than anything I can come up with. When 5 players put their heads together than can absolutely blow my mind with some of the stuff they can come up with. What is it called when the DM adjusts on the fly to well thought out suggestions from the players? What is it called when the players are better at playing than the DM is at DMing?
Doesn't being rigid in what were doing that saying NO regularly often back us into a corner?

I just reread the OP and didn't see any of those labels.

 

[KYRON45]

I just reread the OP and didn't see any of those labels.

I didn't read the OP at all. I’m expanding on the conversation that has taken place along the way.

 

[Oofta]

Also, this isn’t a 4e Thread. Player generated content is vital to our 5e game and to just about any RPG I GM.

At a basic level, any story needs the characters to have wants. And any interesting story needs the characters to have needs that are not always aligned with those wants. Those elements have to come from the players. Or you’re basically playing a board game.

Do they? Because quite frequently character needs and wants are paper thin and pretty meaningless. I think the group generally needs goals, but for example the goal of the Curse of Strahd campaign was to get out of Ravenloft. Now my PC had their own personality and approach, but they never really mattered given the nature of the campaign.

It's fine if you have people who have strong motivations and goals, but for a lot of people they just want to relax, have fun, roll some dice. Different strokes for different folks.