Beginning to Doubt That RPG Play Can Be Substantively "Character-Driven"

aramis erak said:

Player 5 is problem enough that I'd show them the door. The intransigence makes them a total non-team player.

In a system like Spirit of the Century (FATE), with group character gen, and other players having input into your character, such a player simply cannot exert their control demand, because they're already had to forfeit it. Players like #5 will whinge through CGen, and then through play.

I don't see that intransigence in the OP's point of view, but there's not enough to dismiss intransigence, either. So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I will say that a deep (especially multi-page typed) backstory is an impediment to character driven narrative, not a benefit. The more, the harder to make use of, because what's important isn't clear. If you have a 4 party group, and all four have 2 pages typed, that's 8 pages of potentially incompatible that the GM has to integrate.

Meanwhile, if each provides 3-4 good strong bullet points of one to two lines each, those are much easier to parse, and much less likely to be "run over" by each other and the GM.

I've found often enough that the best solution for frustrated players looking for character driven is to play rules-less play-by-post. I've found the players in such tend to respect each others backstories, and engage with them, but it's a very different activity from FTF tabletop.

It's doable in FTF... but it's work that the whole party must agree to do, too.

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I think that your definition of "deep" and mine are different. If I get ~1500 words of decently-written backstory from each of 6 players, I can incorporate that, so long as they all realize they're at the beginnings of their stories. Left to my own devices, I write backstories of between 1000 and 1500 words, including whatever mechanics are implicated.

That doesn't mean there's no such thing as "too much backstory," just that our thresholds are different. Probably it's a good idea to ask your GM how much he wants/

I'm not 100% sure that I understand what the OP is talking about. My role-playing experiences usually have the sorts of character-driven play that @Celebrim described in some detail, which I'm grateful for. I think @innerdude might be getting at something a bit different, but I'm not sure how to place it.

The primary group I play with does a lot of the "method acting style" and sometimes that ends up with characters developing and evolving internally in ways that make sense in the ongoing campaign. I am usually intentional in choosing which part of my personality to into a character I play, so that I will have something to strongly relate with and work with (or even work through in a therapeutic manner).

For example, in a very character-driven (by Celebrim's definition) 3.5e Ravenloft campaign, my character represented my "scared child" personality component. Over the course of the campaign, as he faced terrible Ravenlofty things and interacted with a group of other well-roleplayed characters, he was forced to address his "inner demons" (mechanically reflected by his class, a variant Wilder whose powers were occasionally Ravenloft-corrupted, but thematically addressed through dream sequences and just normal choices during play). He experienced/expressed new aspects of his fears and gradual sense of empowerment through the psionic powers I decided to have him acquire as he leveled up. He also met, developed a relationship with, and eventually married a complex NPC (who, now that I think about it, might easily be described as having a transformative character arc as described in the OP). By the end of the campaign he had overcome/processed much of his fear. Instead of being an Innocent (Ravenloft jargon) farm boy cursed with terrifying powers, somewhat reluctantly traveling around with this motley crew to help out his cousin in the fight against evil, he was a competent, if humble, hero aware of and in reasonable control of those abilities within himself (mechanically reflected by taking a level of Psion near the end of the campaign to pick up a few low-level powers that he didn't have to worry about random downsides using), and willing to step up and do what needed to be done because it was the right thing, not just out of filial piety. Even though his personality is quite a bit different than my own, I was able to take the couple of elements I related to and "get into his head", so that I could experience his journey as if I were him.

I think this does differ from what I'd experience with a book or movie.

Despite my connection with the character, I couldn't be as moved by him, because I was the mover of him.

I think this is huge, and if no one has ever defined this principle before, I'm going to do it right now:

The author cannot also be the audience

If you write a story (say a book or short story), you will never get the same emotional effect as someone reading it might. You know what's going to happen. You have control over it. You can have your villain massacre puppies and it isn't going to affect you the same way as it will the reader. More realistically, when you choose an ending out of a few possibilities, you might get a great sense of satisfaction out of making it work out according to your vision of how it should be, or feel a sense of dissatisfaction if it could've been better, but you will never feel the rage and anguish of those who are pissed off at you for "ending the story wrong".(1) They got invested(2) with the characters and wanted a certain ending, and were devastated when that's not what happened. You might be sorry they felt that way, but you had a creative vision and think you did a really good job with it. While I remember those authorial betrayals (lol) better, the experience is similar with stories when you really like the ending on an emotional level. For instance, I loved the final (2-part) episode of Star Trek: Voyager (other than the lack of post resolution denouement right at the end) because of Janeway's love for her friends and her conviction driving her to (in contrast with her normal choices) completely disregard all "the rules" and literally go back in time to fix all the bad stuff that happened over the past (13?) or so years. There was just this exultant sense of rightness to what she did. A strange, rebellious cosmic justice. And it didn't negate everything that had happened before, because all of the losses over the series were still there--just the losses in the many years between that episode and the previous one were resolved. I got that emotional connection you are talking about. If I had been the author I don't believe that would have been possible.

As far as the reason for this phenomenon, I'm not sure, but I suspect it has to do with there being interpersonal interaction when you are the audience consuming a story composed by someone else, whereas when you yourself are the author it is a solo experience that isn't as emotionally rich in that way as the interpersonal one. The fact is, as much as you might be creatively invested, even to the extent of strong emotion involving that creativity, as much as you might have a strong sense of delight, or disappointment with your work, you can't have the sort of visceral emotional investment that the consumer has regarding the fate that you created for those characters.

So, although I'm still not 100% sure I've identified exactly what phenomenon @innerdude is referring to (and in this type of conversation, I think exact identification is essential), based on the medium of role-playing, I would be surprised if that principle isn't at play here. As long as you are playing (ie, authoring) the character, you can't have the same experience as you could have as the audience of the performance.

Perhaps a way you could get something like that is through the character-driven development of your fellow PCs.

I also think there are experiences you can get through playing a character that you can't get as well through either authoring a story or being a consuming audience. The one I brought up is the therapeutic element of self-exploration. Your ability to guide that interaction dynamically through your character's choices when presented with an environment (by the GM/setting) makes it more effective than authoring a story in the traditional way, or than identifying with the experiences an author chose for some other character as you read/watch their story.

I get the idea that this therapeutic benefit is simply one manifestation of a larger beneficial effect (probably also themed around self-exploration) at work here--one in which role-playing is the best at providing--but I haven't really delved into exactly what that would be. Of course, now that's it's occurred to me I'm not going to be satisfied until I understand it.

Hope that was helpful!


(1) You might feel the rage and anguish of not being able to end the dang story, or not having it appreciated, etc, but that is all outside the story and different than audience investment.
(2) Apparently research indicates that binge watching/reading heightens this emotional investment

prabe said:

I think that your definition of "deep" and mine are different. If I get ~1500 words of decently-written backstory from each of 6 players, I can incorporate that, so long as they all realize they're at the beginnings of their stories. Left to my own devices, I write backstories of between 1000 and 1500 words, including whatever mechanics are implicated.

That doesn't mean there's no such thing as "too much backstory," just that our thresholds are different. Probably it's a good idea to ask your GM how much he wants/

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In my experience, unless all the players work together to craft them at 1500 words each, there will be incompatibilities. Some players won't mind reconciliation between them, others will. I don't want the later

I've found that few players are going to play more than about 150 words worth of that 1500... and I'd rather have the bullet points than the prose. Mileage may vary, But the basic point is, there is such a thing as too much, and the more one writes, the more one needs to coordinate with the other players for it to neither conflict nor be irrelevant.

A lot of games that might be thought of as involving and promoting "character-driven" RPGing - eg, as mentioned in this thread, DitV, Sorcerer, BitD, Burning Wheel - are a direct reaction against a certain sort of approach to Storyteller and similar RPGs.

For instance, they tend to emphasise GM and mechanical transparency, resolution frameworks that can be initiated by players and are binding on GMs, and an absence of pre-written "story" or "metaplot".

Because of @innerdude's emphasis in the OP on mechanics that produce, via play, character arcs, I assume that he (?) is thinking more about those sorts of systems than ones in which mechanics take a back-seat to GM decision-making and the players' principal job is to imbue their performances with authenticity.

I'm not sure if gameplay mechanics are what you need to get to a character-driven experience. I do think that things such as handing out rewards for character development and good roleplaying, can certainly help promote a character driven experience. But I think at the heart of it all are not the mechanics, but the DM and the players themselves as the guiding force of it all.

I think it is up to the DM to come up with a plot and npc's that the players can get emotionally invested in. But it is also up to the players to make that connection, and interact with the fiction. It is then up to the DM to allow the players to further explore these narrative beats, and to respond to their actions in a way that feels meaningful.

Sometimes the DM may need to force a plot development in order to keep the players engaged. An important npc may need to die, in order for the plot to progress in an exciting way. But just as important is that the DM is able to tie the various sub plots and the players' choices together into a cohesive whole.

When all of these pieces come together, that is when you get a fantastic story that is a combination between the plot beats as written by the DM, and the choices of the players. I don't think there is a special trick, or a specific set of rules that will magically make all that happen. Some groups may never get up to that point.

pemerton said:

Because of @innerdude's emphasis in the OP on mechanics that produce, via play, character arcs, I assume that he (?) is thinking more about those sorts of systems than ones in which mechanics take a back-seat to GM decision-making and the players' principal job is to imbue their performances with authenticity.

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Yes, but I don't believe he (we) should limit ourselves by thinking that the mechanics of the game should inhibit our ability and imagination. A game like D&D, which is hard coded for combat and tactics, might not be the best system for deep, immersive, character-driven story telling. But that doesn't stop us from playing that way if we so choose. Like them or not, Critical Role has proven that the system is not a barrier.

Jacob Lewis said:

Yes, but I don't believe he (we) should limit ourselves by thinking that the mechanics of the game should inhibit our ability and imagination. A game like D&D, which is hard coded for combat and tactics, might not be the best system for deep, immersive, character-driven story telling. But that doesn't stop us from playing that way if we so choose. Like them or not, Critical Role has proven that the system is not a barrier.

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I'd go further than "system is not a barrier" here. Not only will some systems work better for some players (occasinally in surprising combinations), some players will deeply engage with their characters in any system, using whatever handles they can find in whatever system they're playing.

pemerton said:

A lot of games that might be thought of as involving and promoting "character-driven" RPGing - eg, as mentioned in this thread, DitV, Sorcerer, BitD, Burning Wheel - are a direct reaction against a certain sort of approach to Storyteller and similar RPGs.

For instance, they tend to emphasise GM and mechanical transparency, resolution frameworks that can be initiated by players and are binding on GMs, and an absence of pre-written "story" or "metaplot".

Because of @innerdude's emphasis in the OP on mechanics that produce, via play, character arcs, I assume that he (?) is thinking more about those sorts of systems than ones in which mechanics take a back-seat to GM decision-making and the players' principal job is to imbue their performances with authenticity.

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One of the things that I notice, as far as my own experiences go, is that the more a system hard-codes mechanical systems for encouraging, rewarding, and integrating that sort if thing, the less I can actually emotionally connect to it.

I don't know where exactly @innerdude is coming from, but to get strong experiences of emotional connection with a character I need to have as strongly first person, primarily actor stance style as possible. When a system gamifies the experience, that creates a level of abstraction (sometimes more than one) that is an emotional barrier between me and the character. Sure, it might assist in "writing a story" (as much as that is possible in this format), but it gets in the way of personal investment with the character. It's substantially worse in that regard than a detailed simulation -heavy character sheet with a big list of mechanical elements and game jargon.

Sword of Spirit said:

When a system gamifies the experience, that creates a level of abstraction (sometimes more than one) that is an emotional barrier between me and the character.

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Very good point, yeah. And of course it depends on each player -- I know that some of my players for instance love systems with advantages/disadvantages (like GURPS or FATE and such), because they use these traits and rolls as a support for their roleplay, but I know that some of my other players see it totally the opposite way, as something that constrains and formalizes their roleplaying performance in a "crude" way, and that they feel gets in the way... so I use other systems with them.

But that has to do with session-by-session roleplay though. The OP was talking about character arcs over the course of multiple adventures. In many ways, systems that formalize a character's traits ("who they are", as opposed to just "what they can do") actually help with character arcs because they almost always include mechanics for adding/removing traits during play (like "buying off" your drug addiction or kleptomania or selfishness or whatever), so they effectively promote character arcs, even if they do so in a way that some players will consider as clunky or as an "emotional barrier"... in which case, those players tend to play with systems that don't do that, and therefore really only have the GM and other people at their table to rely on to be able to engage in a character-changing narrative arc, so you either have the right group or you don't.

Jacob Lewis said:

A game like D&D, which is hard coded for combat and tactics, might not be the best system for deep, immersive, character-driven story telling. But that doesn't stop us from playing that way if we so choose. Like them or not, Critical Role has proven that the system is not a barrier.

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Um... no. Or, not quite.

Do remember that Critical Role is made up of professional actors - people who have specific talent, extensive training and experience in emoting and acting in distracting situations. Saying, "Well, it can be done on Critical Role, so it can be done by anyone," simply is not true, and does a disservice to folks who are trying, but not succeeding, by blaming them for not being good enough.

Imagine that that you are playing, and at random moments, a 7 year old kid in the room blats out horrendous noise from a trumpet. It's probably really distracting. It probably puts you off your game, brings you out of the moment. That's what an ill-fitting ruleset, or one ill-designed for this purpose, can do to a player - be a horrible distraction.