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

[Manbearcat]

I was about to say something similar to this. In contrast to the chorus of "mechanics can't do it". You need mechanics to encourage it. The big carrot for players tends to be XP. So, you need to build an XP system that rewards going through a character arc of some sort. I think The Shadow of Yesterday was perhaps the precursor for this sort of thing. Most of the ones I've seen follow suit. Swap the XP system out of D&D for some sort of character arc system and voila, you'll have it. The only problem you'll have (from experience) is players not taking it seriously, and just "popping" their arc-conclusions. A really good system will work them into the rest of the mechanics as well. I think Fate is (by default) mediocre at this, but there are some additional rules hacks that let it work okay.

Agreed.

This is why you need (a) coherent incentive structures broadly, (b) multiple player-facing, mechanical pressure-points/levers that can materialize fiction (or not, given the product play) that integrates the premise of play (in relation to this thread; the dramatic arc of a changing character) and players' habitation of the mental/emotional space of their characters as outcomes propel play, and (c) well-rendered (meaning coherent and easy to understand), transparent GMing advice that synergizes with (a) and (b).

 

[JeffB]

Having only read the OP-

"Books are Books. Games are Games."

That's an old, old magazine article in The Dragon from the 1970s. Still worth a read today.

 

[LordEntrails]

I have found that character driven play is dependent upon several factors, one of which is the group of players, and a second is the format.

When everyone is sitting around a table for a couple of hours, the mini games of combat and acquisition seem to have a great deal of prominence, but when you change to a more narrative environment, the type of play can change as well.

Specifically, play by post (or email) is an environment that I've found to resonate with not only story driven players, but also with story driven campaigns.

If you are not getting something you want you want from playing RPGs around a table, then try playing them another way. You might be surprised how much you enjoy it.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Imagine you're a Game Master with players who are interested in whatever game, system, or adventure you're offering to run for them. Doesn't matter what it is. It could be the latest adventure module as written, or something completely homebrewed. Even if it is completely open-ended and sandbox-like, you have something in mind to lead the group and draw them into a storyline that you hope they will find compelling and inclusive for both the players and their characters.

For the sake of argument, let's assume you offer to run the latest D&D adventure product, and your players are excited for it. Everyone in the group is at least familiar with the system, and this is not your first time running games for them. But since you have a life and a full-time job outside of gaming, you tend to run modules mostly as written. Nobody really minds because you're a competent GM who is reliable, engaging, and always prepared even when the group inevitably goes "off the rails".

So let's say you propose to run Tomb of Annihilation (which is one that I am familiar with). You establish your parameters for the group during a session 0 and lay out the expectations. It will be set in Forgotten Realms, which is familiar to your group. You describe the setting where it is expected to take place (i.e. mostly in the jungles of Chult). And give a brief introduction of the themes, which include navigating the tropical jungles, fighting exhaustion from heat and dehydration, tomb raiding, and dealing with the death curse. Characters are expected to start at level 1 and get up to level 11-12 by the end.

Now here come your players with their character ideas...

• Player 1 dives right in with one of his regular class/race builds optimized to beat the game. He couldn't tell you anything about his character except what is on his character sheet, though he could tell you exactly which options and level dips he will be taking during any step of the campaign. And his character's motive is to become the best <class> ever, which the player thinks is sufficient enough to appease the GM. It is not, but the GM knows how to pick his battles and moves on.
• Player 2 wants to play the most exotic race imaginable (i.e. one that lives underwater, or usually reviled by others) because "humans are boring", and then proceeds to play his character like a boring human dressed up in some exotic costume. His background and motive may be suitable, but the GM must spend extra time and effort explaining this unusual creature and finding a narrative that is more interesting than the fact that the creature's existence in the campaign itself and why everyone else is okay with it. A more common and accepted race would require less explanation and shoehorning.
• Player 3 rages against the idea of playing in another Forgotten Realms game and insists on having a character from another plane or world, complete with an over-developed background story that involves his preferred setting and can have NO CHANCE whatsoever of being worked into this campaign without porting over part of that world or setting with him.
• Player 4 is all about roleplaying, which in her mind can only be accomplished through social interactions with accompanied skill checks, like Diplomacy and Bluff. She opts for choices that strengthen her abilities to influence anyone she can communicate with (i.e. control the actions and outcomes of others), thus removing any real GM agency or control. However, she quickly grows to loathe combat, for which many sessions will have in this campaign, as she is very ineffective and prone to fall unconscious whenever she becomes a target.
• Finally, Player 5 is much like the OP of this thread. He cannot understand why the GM is incapable of providing a deep, emotional experience for his character even though he provided a fully detailed and interesting backstory, complete with motives, hooks, and potential tie-ins for the GM to use. The GM thinks he can incorporate some of those ideas with some tweaks and changing the details to use some of the things already in the campaign that the player doesn't know about, but the player feels that the GM is trying to rob him of his agency and creativity if he doesn't follow the player's ideas exactly.

If you're the Game Master here, where do you think the problem might be? Are you blaming yourself for not being more flexible and accommodating? Do you think maybe the players don't trust you because they feel more entitled to play exactly what they want, even ignoring the parameters and advice you are willing to provide at the start? Or are they satisfied to play in "your story", even though it's clearly not your story but a published module that you didn't create, as long as they can play "their story" in it?

In literature, as in any narrative, good stories are about characters; characters that belong in the story. If you want to create a narrative game experience that involves your characters, learn to collaborate with the people involved.

Only the GM has information and insight about what is to come, and they may not want to reveal and ruin some of the surprise. Give the seeds for your character and trust your GM to work it into the game in a way that you couldn't possibly foresee. The results may surprise and delight you.

Also, work with the other players to develop relationships between your characters beyond what skills and roles to take. They don't need to be friends or agree on certain topics, which makes it more interesting at times. But they don't need to blindly accept whoever shows up at the table, either. You want a deeper story for your hero? Look at your cast of co-stars. Remember: Monologues are for villains.

 

[chaochou]

As I’ve suggested before, try Dogs and try Blades.

They don’t produce GM-curated, Player Power Fantasies or insipid, ensemble cast wandering through thematic murk. The mechanics and GMing produce people that struggle, often fail, may/likely break, and maybe redeem/recover (though often not).

I tend to agree, although I don't think those games will automatically produce the richness of change and realisation the OP is alluding to... that takes good players.

I've been through a similar arc to the OP, and it took a long time to get my friends out of banale power fantasy land, with its cartoon combat and safe reliable magic, and back into the headspace of real people. And by a long time, I mean a number of games - maybe eight or nine.

If I was doing it again, I'd start with several one-shots - character change of the type in the OP can be realised in a single session very powerfully, and more safely from a player point of view. And I'd look for games which absolutely want that as a central tenet of play. Personally I'd go for Sorcerer (Adept Press) which is entirely about a character (or characters) each facing their own moment of crisis and how they change while dealing with it.

When the group is able to play Sorcerer well as a one-shot or over three or four sessions to create a satisfying set of interlinked character arcs - then I think Dogs and Blades are great suggestions.

 

[pemerton]

When everyone is sitting around a table for a couple of hours, the mini games of combat and acquisition seem to have a great deal of prominence

You seem to be assuming D&D here. Sit around the table playing (say) Cthulhu Dark or Prince Valiant or even Classic Traveller and, at least in my experience, this won't happen.

 

[pemerton]

Imagine you're a Game Master with players who are interested in whatever game, system, or adventure you're offering to run for them. Doesn't matter what it is. It could be the latest adventure module as written, or something completely homebrewed. Even if it is completely open-ended and sandbox-like, you have something in mind to lead the group and draw them into a storyline that you hope they will find compelling and inclusive for both the players and their characters.

For the sake of argument, let's assume you offer to run the latest D&D adventure product, and your players are excited for it.

<snip>

So let's say you propose to run Tomb of Annihilation (which is one that I am familiar with). You establish your parameters for the group during a session 0 and lay out the expectations. It will be set in Forgotten Realms, which is familiar to your group. You describe the setting where it is expected to take place (i.e. mostly in the jungles of Chult). And give a brief introduction of the themes, which include navigating the tropical jungles, fighting exhaustion from heat and dehydration, tomb raiding, and dealing with the death curse. Characters are expected to start at level 1 and get up to level 11-12 by the end.

Now here come your players with their character ideas...

<snip details>

Do you think maybe the players don't trust you because they feel more entitled to play exactly what they want, even ignoring the parameters and advice you are willing to provide at the start? Or are they satisfied to play in "your story", even though it's clearly not your story but a published module that you didn't create, as long as they can play "their story" in it?

<snip>

Only the GM has information and insight about what is to come, and they may not want to reveal and ruin some of the surprise.

What you describe here won't deliver the sort of play the OP is talking about.

There can't be dramatic character arcs if "the story" is already written (by the GM or the module author or whomever) and the GM already knows what is to come.

Doubly so if the GM has already decided what that story will be independently of the development by the players of their characters.

This essay by Ron Edwards is pretty relevant to what @innerdude is talking about.

Here's a salient quote:

How this works is pretty simple: the primary pre-play creative work lies in character creation, with setting elements being utilized or even invented strictly to generate conflicts and issues are exemplified by those characters. “Real” setting, or rather, the development of setting that’s genuinely external to the characters, is an emergent property of playing for a while, and it emerges simultaneously with the emergence of plot from the characters’ actions and experiences.​

This is related to my comment upthread that the notion of "the adventure" has to be dropped. In my personal experience this is more important than particular mechanical bells-and-whistles.

regular class/race builds optimized to beat the game

<snip>

choices that strengthen her abilities to influence anyone she can communicate with (i.e. control the actions and outcomes of others), thus removing any real GM agency or control.

<snip>

why the GM is incapable of providing a deep, emotional experience for his character even though he provided a fully detailed and interesting backstory, complete with motives, hooks, and potential tie-ins for the GM to use. The GM thinks he can incorporate some of those ideas with some tweaks and changing the details to use some of the things already in the campaign that the player doesn't know about, but the player feels that the GM is trying to rob him of his agency and creativity if he doesn't follow the player's ideas exactly

There seem to be many assumptions here that are at odds with the sort of play the OP is talking about.

Beating the game only makes sense for a certain sort of RPGing, involving a certain range of systems (D&D and T&T most prominently). I don't think those are what @innerdude has in mind.

And there also seem to be assumptions about "GM agency" - often also called GM force - which are pretty much orthogonal to what the OP is talking about. In RPGing, you don't get emotionally engaging character arcs by having the GM tell you what happens to your PC. The player needs to be able to impact the fiction. (Whether that is via social, combat or other mechanics seems a secondary matter.)

 

[Jacob Lewis]

What you describe here won't deliver the sort of play the OP is talking about.

There can't be dramatic character arcs if "the story" is already written (by the GM or the module author or whomever) and the GM already knows what is to come.

Doubly so if the GM has already decided what that story will be independently of the development by the players of their characters.

Yes, that is exactly right. My example was intended to illustrate the same dilemma that the OP described, but in a more detailed and all-too-common scenario with a popular system that doesn't normally support this kind of experience during play. In fact, it makes the same assumptions that you're pointing out - that everyone assumes the GM can't or won't engage with the players to incorporate their characters as the focus of a narrative because it may deviate from the written path. Likewise, players are unwilling to give up what they feel is their entitlement to have complete control over their characters instead of collaborating to create something complimentary and complete. System and mechanics don't matter. It can be done. I do it all the time.

 

[Wulffolk]

The old White Wolf games had some excellent essays on role-playing and story-telling included in the core books. Ars Magica and The World of Darkness games really evolved my perspective on RPGs.

On some levels their influence ruined my ability to enjoy D&D because I was constantly seeking in D&D the depth of role-playing that I experienced in the various StoryTeller game systems.

One of the major differences I have noticed through the years is the trend of making maps and miniatures such a huge part of a game. I think this tends to focus the game more on combat and tactics. I almost always had much deeper role-playing experiences in the old days of D&D when we played in the "Theatre of the Mind" rather than on a hex map or grid. This is one of the advantages of the StoryTeller games, they are usually played in the "Theatre of the Mind" and thus require more imagination.

 

[aramis erak]

Now here come your players with their character ideas...

• Finally, Player 5 is much like the OP of this thread. He cannot understand why the GM is incapable of providing a deep, emotional experience for his character even though he provided a fully detailed and interesting backstory, complete with motives, hooks, and potential tie-ins for the GM to use. The GM thinks he can incorporate some of those ideas with some tweaks and changing the details to use some of the things already in the campaign that the player doesn't know about, but the player feels that the GM is trying to rob him of his agency and creativity if he doesn't follow the player's ideas exactly.

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.