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

[lordabdul]

I'm not quite sure what the OP is looking for... of course a bunch of random nerds semi-improvising a story where there's no clear main protagonist and half the time they're busy looking up rules is not going to come remotely close to a carefully and professionally crafted novel, at least in terms of thematic significance and character arcs. But it can be as satisfying and fun, or even more, because RPGs are way more than telling a story about a bunch of characters -- they're also a board game and an improv' show and a social gathering and so on. They're as much related to reading a novel as they are to playing in a free-style jazz band.

The thing about character arcs is that you tend to design them. Knowing where you want your character to be at the end of the campaign isn't so much what I envision roleplaying to be -- I see it more as playing your character and seeing where he ends up. It's like throwing a pebble without knowing which way gravity points or whether there's wind, and watching what happens. You know the starting point and starting parameters, but you don't know quite what happens next. If you did, or if you were trying to force the end point (to get the arc you wanted) then it's... I don't know what it is. A kind of RPG equivalent to the "Once Upon A Time" card game (an awesome storytelling game where each player is trying to twist the tale to their ending card... try it!). For me on of the joys of RPG is that there's no character arc -- or only in retrospect, maybe.

 

[Imaculata]

I think you just need the right DM and the right group of players. I happen to be blessed with a fantastic group of players. The amount of character growth I've seen in the last few sessions is incredible. They can fill a whole session with nothing but roleplaying. Just characters interacting with each other.

 

[Lanefan]

As a very recent example: in the game I just got home from we have in the party a Necromancer and two undead-hating Clerics (of which I play one). We're in the adventure we're in largely because we're (we hope!) tying off some loose ends from a long DM plot; but most of the character development is coming from these three arguing about undead and-or trying to understand the uses and viewpoints of the other side.

My rp-ing in this case is largely informed by my backstory: to beat the setting's very long history down to 40 words, the game world MIRVed into four a while* back**; my character is from one world-version but adventuring on another, and the version I'm from is almost overrun with undead.

* - just how long ago depends on which world-version you're on, as time passed differently in each one.
** - and to add to the fun, the four world-versions just got mushed back into one a mere few weeks ago in game time.

 

[Imaculata]

In my pirate campaign, one of my players has decided to follow the path to sainthood (a 3.5 prestige class). I made an agreement with the player that he would obtain sainthood as soon as his character performed a grand important accomplishment that was of religious significance. Unknown to the player in question, they were coming up to a quest that would do just that if they succeeded: To liberate a group of dwarven pirates from their ancient curse and restore their holy temple.

After they succeeded I gave him the prestige class of saint, but with all the crazy extras that come with being one. I had the player be heralded as some sort of prophet. Many people from around the coast had had a prophetic vision of him, and they all traveled in huge numbers to meet with him. People wanted his blessing, and wanted to touch him. A local nun came to verify his holyness, and wanted to wash his feet. Countless pilgrims brought small wooden statues of him. Others just came to ask him to heal their illnesses. The entire session was dedicated just to playing out this whole event, and the reactions of his companions.

 

[Raduin711]

I am a fan of the Mage: The Ascension rpg, and in my experience, it is an example of a game that only works as a character driven campaign. The scope of what a character can do is so broad in this game, that trying to come up with a D&D style challenge for the players is kind of a fool's errand. You might get a little mileage out of it, but the vast scope of what a Mage can do means that whatever web you weave will have the strings cut rather quickly.

Mysteries are difficult to keep secret when your players can read minds and look into the past. Things are hard to keep out of the player's reach when they can scry and teleport. Combat? If you know you are headed into a fight, most battles are over before they began. Supplies? You can manipulate fate and bet it all on roulette and win, or turn garbage into gold.

I have seen Mage GM's try to run games like this, and their plots just fall apart at the seams. It's very similar to the problems of high-level D&D games.

So the game has to shift to the other foot; rather than asking the GM "what are we doing today, boss?" it becomes "Alright, so you can look through time/go wherever you want/bend fate to your will/turn trash into gold/etc... what are you going to DO with this power?" So now instead of the players reacting to whatever scenario you've cooked up, you are reacting to the players.

I think character-driven play is difficult for low-power characters because they lack the sort of power needed to influence the game world.

 

[pemerton]

The OP includes the following key passages:

I have found it to be nigh impossible to drift into what I would consider a true "character-driven" style of play.

<snip>

I know that most new systems these days have specific focuses on character backstory, personality traits, motivations, and desires.

<snip>

But in my experience, even the best of these character "hooks" or inputs don't seem to make a difference in driving an in-play narrative of substantive character change---i.e., the experience of watching a character materially change in ways that are fundamental to their place in the fiction.

Examples of players inventing and pursuing goals for their PCs, or engaging in mechanically unmediated intraparty roleplay, aren't showing that the OP is wrong. They're evidence in favour of the points made.

 

[pemerton]

I've run Traveller games where everything was either player chosen or random rolled. Even the patron encounters were randomly selected from 76 Patrons.

My current Traveller campaign resembles this - though the random patron rolls are just on the main table, with me as GM using contemporary GMing techniques (standard scene-framey stuff) to decide what exactly the patrons want.

But the campaign is one of the less character-driven I've run in the past couple of decades. It's much more "procedural" than "dramatic". I haven't found that the system brings out much in terms of character inner lives.

Burning Wheel is better suited

Absolutely - doing character-driven play in the OP's sense is more-or-less its schtick.

 

[Manbearcat]

@innerdude

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).

You have to put in WORK to not derive what you’re looking for in the lead post in those two games. Simply playing the actual game does the trick.

 

[lordabdul]

Examples of players inventing and pursuing goals for their PCs, or engaging in mechanically unmediated intraparty roleplay, aren't showing that the OP is wrong. They're evidence in favour of the points made.

But surely, even if it's "mechanically unmediated" (because the impulse is entirely player driven[1]), the mechanics play a role in both the ongoing events, and in their outcome? As the player pursue their character goals, they do so, by definition, by using the mechanics of the game. And every step of the way, their character sheet is modified by the choices they've made: they gain experience and levels, they lose sanity, they acquire new mental or physical disadvantages/traits/whatever they're called in your system, etc.... no?

[1] note that for some system, the impulse might be semi-rules-driven, like a character trait that the system incentivizes you to pursue.

 

[Ratskinner]

<snippage>
But as far as your comments about system are concerned, maybe you need to try some different systems and even moreso some different techniques! Especially different GMing techniques. Not every character in every campaign I've ever played has had a dramatic character arc, but it's something I've seen multiple times in multiple systems. What will tend to produce it, in my experience, is (i) a player who is willing to find out where his/her PC goes (ie without too much preconception) and (ii) a GM who is willing to push on the player's willingness and follow it where it leads.

In my experience, it can be done without dropping the conceit of a "party". I don't think it can be done without dropping the conceit of the "adventure". The bells-and-whistles of the hooks/inputs you refer to can help, both by (i) helping the GM know where to push, and (ii) helping support the player in following the fiction without being worried about being hosed too badly. But again, in my experience at least, they're not essential.

One example where they did work to produce a very clear one-session character arc was in a session of Marvel Heroic RP. The player of Nightcrawler noticed his "Romantic" milestone, which culminates in 10 XP "
when you either break off a romantic relationship, or seek to enter into a more permanent partnership and ask your love to marry you." Over the course of the session he met a woman in a bar (a supervillain, natch), teleported her to the top of the Capitol Dome to have some intimate time together, and then abandoned her to join the fight against her friends in the Smithsonian Institute. The XP earned were used to (among other things) pay for a change of one Distinction from Devout Catholic to (I think, going from memory) The Devil Within.

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.