D&D General How Often Should a PC Die in D&D 5e?

[TwoSix]

And to me, that is all a story is. So I agree with you that issue is our definition of "story."

For instance, my story this morning did not involve a donut, just the dog going to the bathroom on grassy hill.

Yea, I would agree with that definition. Since I can conceive of a future individual being able to recount my present actions as their past, thus making it into a "story", it doesn't feel incoherent for me to say I feel like "I'm in the middle of my story".

Everything that IS happening is just someone else's historical narrative.

 

[KYRON45]

And to me, that is all a story is. So I agree with you that issue is our definition of "story."

For instance, my story this morning did not involve a donut, just the dog going to the bathroom on grassy hill.

What is the threshold between what is currently happening and when that moment qualifies as a story?
The only reason I play D&D is the story. The rules are just ancillary. So like i said...i don't understand the point of of view.
Which isn't to say I disagree...i just don't understand.

 

[tetrasodium]

by being the main influential forces that we follow in the events of the story

isn't that basically what all stories boil down to being?

why though? what's really the difference between sessions of a TTRPG and any other ongoing media besides the fact that some narrative fat might be trimmed, or those 'based on real events' stories, those were still stories as they were happening and before someone prettied it up for a half hour block of programming.

doesn't it, by your logic, become a story immediately after a session ends and the players start recounting what happened? it doesn't even need the session to end really, really, the GM's introductory 'you all meet in a tavern' counts as a story by those qualifiers, an incredibly short and basic one perhaps but they're still recounting events and telling the players of them.

Going to agree with Micah on this, the disagreement is over approaching the game with an outlook of the party I am part of as OUR story focus vrs "MyCharecter as MY story focus.

That first outlook is s good & healthy approach to a collaborative team game for all the reasons anyone ever said "there's no I in team". Battlestar Galactica (remake) leverage firefly and many others provide good examples of these kinds of stories

The second outlook there demotes everyone else to a role like "my sidekicks" and that's not particularly healthy when multiple characters are doing the same. The Witcher Dr who most terminator movies and others make good examples of this kind of story. It's not until this second style hits multiple concurrent largely isolated but intertwined stories like game of thrones to get back to multiple main characters and a story about the world itself rather than a party, but that's really a scale that is far too big for a game of d&d

 

[dave2008]

What is the threshold between what is currently happening and when that moment qualifies as a story?
The only reason I play D&D is the story. The rules are just ancillary. So like i said...i don't understand the point of of view.
Which isn't to say I disagree...i just don't understand.

I think your asking the wrong person. I think we have the same point of view - we are constantly in our story.

 

[KYRON45]

Going to agree with Micah on this, the disagreement is over approaching the game with an outlook of the party I am part of as OUR story focus vrs "MyCharecter as MY story focus.

That first outlook is s good & healthy approach to a collaborative team game for all the reasons anyone ever said "there's no I in team". Battlestar Galactica (remake) leverage firefly and many others provide good examples of these kinds of stories

The second outlook there demotes everyone else to a role like "my sidekicks" and that's not particularly healthy when multiple characters are doing the same. The Witcher Dr who most terminator movies and others make good examples of this kind of story. It's not until this second style hits multiple concurrent largely isolated but intertwined stories like game of thrones to get back to multiple main characters and a story about the world itself rather than a party, but that's really a scale that is far too big for a game of d&d

Is who's story it is relevant? Isn't the question.....Is it a story at all?

 

[dave2008]

Going to agree with Micah on this, the disagreement is over approaching the game with an outlook of the party I am part of as OUR story focus vrs "MyCharecter as MY story focus.

I don't think that is Micah's point of view. They have repeatedly said their is no story (for the group or character) until after the adventure or campaign is over. Then you can tell the story of the events. To be clear, that is my understanding of @Micah Sweet's view, not my perspective.

 

[KYRON45]

I think your asking the wrong person. I think we have the same point of view - we are constantly in our story.

I was just asking in general. I'm an old man. I just mash the keyboard and that's where my replay lands.

 

[Lanefan]

Wandering bands of mercenaries with the hive-mind solidarity that is implied by default D&D party play is, to my mind, completely unrealistic.

The first bolded bit: common as dirt.

The second bolded bit: vanishingly rare, IME.

 

[Lanefan]

The difference between the experience of free-writing a novel is, to me, very like the experience of GMing a TRPG when there's no pre-planned series of events. I presume you would say that the TRPG session is not a story--and I mostly agree--but could session notes be one?

Yes. The run of play during the session is the "stuff that happens", the game log afterwards is the story that results.

How much editing, how much reshaping the narrative into some sort of story structure, would need to happen to make it one?

Near zero. The difference to me is that "story" is something that emerges or coalesces only in hindsight and memory. Even a pre-planned plot in foresight isn't a story yet, it's only a potential story.

Feel free to presume I'm the GM, but I'm talking about player-side session notes.

Ah. I'm referring to DM-side game logs; in either case, though, I think we're both referring to material accessible to all involved that tells the tale of - and keeps record of - what has happened in the fiction.

 

[Lanefan]

I was just asking in general. I'm an old man. I just mash the keyboard and that's where my replay lands.

You're typing to find out what happens?