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

[Neonchameleon]

When I started my current campaign, using what started life as my ten level 4e retroclone, I gave the players a choice of "party character sheet" to determine the campaign style. I presented them with three; the Stonetop based Settling On The Borderlands, the Pirate's Life, and the mercenary Band of Bravos. They picked the Bravos - which let each of them write a different objective or enemy group. The vampire PC picked a master vampire and wants freedom and to kill their maker, the dwarf wanted to rescue his family black sheep brother, the Eladrin's in trouble with the Fey court, the Barbarian's on the outs with his own tribes, and more. It's not the best mapped world but the entire thing has been a blast with the characters tied to the world, and the NPCs and plots are frequently ones I wouldn't have thought of without the players having initially set up the threats.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Both comments take it as a premise that the GM's "BS" or "novel" - that is, the GM's fiction - is in some sense genuine or robust or worthy of sharing, whereas the players' contributions are not.

That was not the intended implication, I did not mean BS negatively like that, it was just expression for making stuff up. But it changes the nature of the problem solving. It is different to improvise solution with limited pieces than to be able to invent new pieces. Either can be fun, but if you like the former adding the latter ruins it.

It is the same reason why as a GM I these days prefer to have pretty fixed myth that sets limits to myself.

 

[pemerton]

Because I'm trying to have a conversation and explain why people don't want players doing world building

Do you think you could start your own thread about that, rather than derailing this one?

 

[Oofta]

Do you think you could start your own thread about that, rather than derailing this one?

If people stop saying things like "It's like an autocratic ruler of peasants" or "If you're not playing a game based on individual goals and character growth you're playing a board game" or that somehow we aren't really role playing to name a few, sure.

If all you want is positives you should make this a (+) thread.

 

[pemerton]

But it changes the nature of the problem solving.

As I posted upthread,

A skill challenge isn't a puzzle, with the GM having prescribed the solution and the players expected to guess or infer what that is. A skill challenge is a fictional situation with a "complexity" deemed by the GM. The players' role is to use their imagination to conceive of things that their PCs can do to achieve their goal in the situation.

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.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

When I started my current campaign, using what started life as my ten level 4e retroclone, I gave the players a choice of "party character sheet" to determine the campaign style. I presented them with three; the Stonetop based Settling On The Borderlands, the Pirate's Life, and the mercenary Band of Bravos. They picked the Bravos - which let each of them write a different objective or enemy group. The vampire PC picked a master vampire and wants freedom and to kill their maker, the dwarf wanted to rescue his family black sheep brother, the Eladrin's in trouble with the Fey court, the Barbarian's on the outs with his own tribes, and more. It's not the best mapped world but the entire thing has been a blast with the characters tied to the world, and the NPCs and plots are frequently ones I wouldn't have thought of without the players having initially set up the threats.

This is the sort of thing I like and I think a lot of people have informally done this for ages by having players write character backgrounds and then incorporate elements from those to the events. But a lot of games these days have formalised structure or advice for doing this, and that's probably a good thing.

 

[Clint_L]

Our home games accept player contributions to the extent that players can simply add details that they think make sense in the story. But this could become an issue if they contradict what I have already set up in ways that will negate chunks of world building or trivialize the game. So, for example, one of my players could simply respond to the wall problem by stating, "I notice a nearby worksite where a new temple is being constructed, and see that there is an unattended ladder." Usually, players will therefore frame such moments as a question.

This happened in our last game. As part of an ongoing subplot, one of the players was looking for news of where his missing mentor might be found, and he had an idea about it that he wanted to introduce to the story. Unfortunately, that idea would have contradicted another plot thread and obviated a huge chunk of material that I had prepared that morning on the understanding that the players wanted to do a certain thing, and that the player was leaving the mentor subplot largely to me. So I politely declined and he politely accepted, trusting there was good reason.

My point is that I have found that running an aggressively player-generated content campaign requires a group that is very copacetic and trusts each other - I trust that my players aren't trying to undermine me or each other, and they trust that if I don't run with an idea, I have good reason for it. I don't run my beginner games at school nearly as loosely.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

As I posted upthread,

Situations do not need to be puzzles with predetermined solutions even if the players cannot invent new fiction. You can creatively problem solve with existing elements.

 

[Pedantic]

A skill challenge isn't a puzzle, with the GM having prescribed the solution and the players expected to guess or infer what that is. A skill challenge is a fictional situation with a "complexity" deemed by the GM. The players' role is to use their imagination to conceive of things that their PCs can do to achieve their goal in the situation. Diplomacy is a skill for being friendly and persuasive with people. Athletics is a skill for using muscle and physical prowess - running, jumping, climbing, etc.

You're implying a dichotomy here between a "puzzle" and a "situation" that omits a significant middle ground. Puzzle implies both design of the precise sequence of events, a preemptively knowable and fixed solution or solutions. Consider something like a roguelike; the game state will present challenges and puzzles without regard for the player's ability to solve them, and the player will seek a solution using the tools they have without knowing a solution exists.

It's a different sort of dynamic than you're discussing with player generated fiction, in that a player cannot negotiate the situation or their tools, but it's certainly more dynamic than a puzzle with a fixed solution.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

We had posters who literally stated that the only reason a GM didn't allow players to contribute to world building outside of their PC's sphere of influence was doing it because they wanted to protect their "precious world". Not only is that insulting, but the same broad sentiment has been repeatedly stated that the only reason people don't have shared world building is basically because they've only ever played D&D and don't know how great shared world building is. It's BS.

D&D isn't designed as a narrative game such as PbtA games. The default is, to quote the DMG "The DM creates a world for the other players to explore, and also creates and runs adventures that drive the story. ... You’re the DM, and you are in charge of the game." That doesn't mean you can't do whatever makes sense for you and your group, if you want players to design their own region, describe the towns their visiting, create the NPCs or adventures go for it! It's your game, follow your bliss.

Thing is, I simply disagree. I, and my players, like the separation of church and state DM and player, the designer of the world and the player being solely responsible for the PC. There is no one true way and I get tired of people t

In response to "quite frequently character needs and wants are paper thin and pretty meaningless."

I'm a little puzzled why you take issue with @pemerton, who hasn't really said anything one way or another about good or bad play styles. I've read a comment or two from other people that MIGHT be interpreted as judgmental if you really wanted to take them that way, but they seemed pretty much in the realm of expressing their own likes and dislikes.

Then you've been playing with different people with different goals than I have. I'll take a PC I ran recently. He certainly had a tragic backstory and his personality was affected by it. His wife and child had been killed by (skipping in-game lore) bandits who had been hunted down by authorities. He felt guilt because he hadn't been there to protect them and anger that he had not had his vengeance. So he became a vengeance paladin.

But needs? Wants? Eh. He wanted to hunt down others that would do harm to innocents and see that justice was done. But that to me is pretty thin motivation, it didn't really tie into any specific goals or desires. There was no one to hunt down, they were already dead. He wanted to help where he could to stop anyone else from suffering like he did, but so what?

I also had no need or desire for personal growth. If during the campaign if his attitude changed, great, if it didn't it didn't matter to me one bit. But I had a lot of fun with the PC even though outside of my character background story (verified with my DM) I never contributed once to world building outside of what my PC did or said.

I think it goes without saying we all have somewhat different experiences, but it seems like you feel that other people pointing out those differences is somehow belittling your own, which I don't find to be the case.

As to the 'thinness' you describe in the case of this Paladin... What would NOT be 'thin' to you?!?! I mean, a game in which the focus of the action (at least WRT that character) is on hunting down evil-doers as some sort of compensation for his thwarted sense of justice doesn't seem THIN to me at all! It might be only one aspect of a more complex character, so if that's all there is the PC might be a bit one-dimensional, perhaps, but maybe not. I can think of dozens of ways this can be manifested in play in terms of specific goals etc. However, at least in a Narrativist approach the most interesting kind of play might be testing him on it. Is he really willing to do terrible things to get revenge? Is he entirely sure that he's qualified to be judge, jury, and executioner? How about if his sense of vengeance demands that he go up against people he cares about?

I think there's solid RP potential, at least, there. I would think that if it came out seeming thin that was more due to the way the GM in this example (which you don't discuss, so we don't really know) approached the whole thing. If he just went on ahead and ran some adventure or other without this whole thing playing any role in it, then sure it may have amounted to a hill of nothing. That seems to me to be more a commentary on the GMing techniques in use than anything else (and again, to be clear, if all you wanted was a backstory to be mild color, then your GM was batting 1000).