Do you prefer your character to be connected or unconnected to the adventure hook?

[Maxperson]

An example of the former would be taking vengeance on the murderer of your PC's parents. An example of the latter would be a bounty hunter PC choosing to track down the same murderer but lacking any personal connection, at least initially.

The former makes for a more emotionally engaging story. The latter potentially gives the players more freedom, assuming it's a sandbox containing many possible adventures.

For me it depends on the character. I enjoy both a lot.

 

[Scott Christian]

I just don't understand how you can look at a branching narrative like that, where there aren't set sign posts, no pre scripted scenes, there's no narrative structure that players have to follow to have the correct storyline unfurl before them, and insist that it's an A must go to B must go to C must finish at D storyline.

How exactly are storylines, that either the players or random chance come up with and lead me as the GM down, predetermined paths created by me?

First, as I have said a lot: A to B to C can happen out of order. Stories follow a plot diagram is the point of A to B to C. Now that that is out of the way.

So if you do not prep anything in advance, then you are not following the character's motives. Because at some point during play they are bound to expand on the motives. They are bound to try and follow them. But if you don't plot that, fine. You have exactly what I said earlier in this thread - a bunch of random encounters.

I also said there is nothing wrong with that. It's fun. It can be a lot of fun. But it doesn't follow a plot, hence no A to B to C. They are just made up on the spot and determined by a roll or an action. That's cool.

 

[Scott Christian]

@Scott Christian - please clarify something for me:

When you're talking about how things always go A-to-B-to-C, from which point of view are you speaking:

1. From ahead of time, where the DM has plotted out that the story will go from A to B to C before play begins (i.e. a typical approach to a hard-line AP)
2. From after the fact, looking back on a campaign that in hindsight went A to B to C whether or not that progression was pre-planned by the DM.

All the arguments you're getting are assuming you're speaking as 1. above, but I'm starting to wonder if you're speaking as 2. 2 is inevitable: looking at any campaign in hindsight makes it easy to tie the story together and see the connections, whether they were pre-planned or not, and so there's little if any point talking about it. (looking at a campaign in hindsight and failing to find any connecting story at all would be rare indeed, I think)

It's 1. that matters: does the DM plot this stuff out ahead of time and if yes, how willing is she to deviate from that plot as the campaign develops through play and maybe goes in different and-or unforeseen directions?

I know this is going to be a cop-out answer, but I see it in between. I do not view AP's as 1. Not in the slightest. They are a setting, with dozens of NPC's and villains, events that will happen no matter what the PC's do, and flavor (culture, ecosystem, magic items, etc.). I understand what you are saying about number 2. I just feel that is in the AP's if the DM does their job: preps, allows the players to do what they want, and tries to intertwine elements of the AP to what they are doing.
A DM that does zero prep for a session, that just makes it up off the top of their head, is really just doing levelled (and sometimes not levelled) random encounters. But my guess is, most DM's, even ones that say they do, do not do that. They have their setting, which they know. They have locations the players can reach. They have an antagonist. They have inciting incidents to start the story. They even have (in their head) a possibility of conclusions at least for a session or two. Now do players surprise us? Yup. That's part of the fun. But if a DM has a campaign that has lasted a few months, and that DM can't predict how their players are going to react, then they are not paying attention.
So do you see what I mean about it being both. Just because the DM didn't write a hundred pages on the next two sessions doesn't mean they don't know. And if they are trying to integrate their character's motives into the session (the topic of this thread), then they will have an idea how to work with that motive to create a story.
If they don't do any of that (A to B to C), then they are just using a random encounter table.

 

[Ovinomancer]

First, as I have said a lot: A to B to C can happen out of order. Stories follow a plot diagram is the point of A to B to C. Now that that is out of the way.

So if you do not prep anything in advance, then you are not following the character's motives. Because at some point during play they are bound to expand on the motives. They are bound to try and follow them. But if you don't plot that, fine. You have exactly what I said earlier in this thread - a bunch of random encounters.

I also said there is nothing wrong with that. It's fun. It can be a lot of fun. But it doesn't follow a plot, hence no A to B to C. They are just made up on the spot and determined by a roll or an action. That's cool.

I do not follow a plot AND my game is not a series of random encounters. This is the thing you're failing to grasp as a category. I did, too, for a long time. It's a hard conceptual leap, especially if you have no exposure to it. Again, I'd suggest playing other games that do this kind of play well, because it will expose you to the possibilities in 5e.

 

[pemerton]

People can play all they want and have just random encounters. There is nothing wrong with that. I've done it. It's fun. But it also means that the DM is not looking at character motives either. Which was the question the OP posted. And one I said, characters must have a motive. The DM attaches to it. Thus, plot ensues: A to B to C. Not always in that order. But the plot diagram exists.

if you do not prep anything in advance, then you are not following the character's motives. Because at some point during play they are bound to expand on the motives. They are bound to try and follow them. But if you don't plot that, fine. You have exactly what I said earlier in this thread - a bunch of random encounters.

I can't speak for @Hussar or @Nytmare as far as their games are concerned. But I can speak to your general claim, which - as I understand it - is that the alternative to random encounters is material prepared in advance to respond to declared actions that express PC motives.

That general claim is false. It is possible to respond to such declared actions without preparing material - and, in particular, without preparing plot - in advance. There are fairly well-known techniques for doing so.

A DM that does zero prep for a session, that just makes it up off the top of their head, is really just doing levelled (and sometimes not levelled) random encounters.

This claim is false. Here is an actual play example from 4e D&D play. I can't imagine 5e is so radically different as to make this sort of thing impossible.

 

[Scott Christian]

Um, this is all very interesting, but you're telling me I have a plot in my 5e game that my players are playing through? I'm curious, can you tell me what it is? I'd love to know.

Maybe you don't have one?

Again, my skill challenge structure blows this out of the water. I suggest you read it again, and, rather than insisting that you have the one way it works, consider how it might work in a different way and try, very hard, to imagine out that would work. Here's the rub of how a skill challenge works, in my game: I present a challenge to their goal, they tell me how they solve it, and dice are rolled. If a success, the PCs solve it how they say. If a failure, I add pain points. For example, in a skill challenge earlier in my game, two PCs were trying to gather information on one of the PC's nemesis. They had heard that the nemesis had been working in a certain area of the city and so went to find out. They first decided to approach a business in the area that they thought would be likely to supply the nemesis, and asked there. I presented an employee who might know something, but was being cagey. They used intimidation to force the issue and have the employee tell where the nemesis was. They succeeded, which meant that they got one step closer (a single success doesn't win, but moves you in the right direction) -- in this case being pointed at another business owner who had handled most of the work, this guy just handling some subcontract stuff. So, they went to track him down.

From my perspective, the initial business owner didn't exist in my notes or prep until they decided on this approach -- it made sense that one would exist, so one did. The second business owner certainly didn't exist until they tried it. And, in that attempt, the fact that he was huge and scary (Sigil) didn't happen until they failed the roll to find him, meaning that he was now dangerous. And, the fact that he actually turned out to have a huge heart and loved his neighborhood didn't happen until one of the PCs made a successful Intuition roll when trying to figure out what the scary business owner's Bond was. And, that he supplied food until just last week, when the nemesis packed up shop wasn't prepped until they made the third failure in this chain, resulting in a loss condition for the overall goal of finding the nemesis in the city. None of this was prepped, all of it occurred immediately in play, and it used 5e rules to the hilt, with just the addition of the overall skill challenge framework I like to use for complex tasks. This one, in play, example changed a good bit about what has happened in the campaign, because dealing with the nemesis was delayed for other considerations.

As stated earlier, I am discussing D&D, 5e specifically. I do not know what "pain points" are. That sounds like a house-rule. Your multiple skill check rules also sound like an alternate version. That said, it also sounds like a fun session. But, the same exact situation could have happened with an any AP. And when this happened, did you not plot in your head what the nemesis might do? Or is going to be purely random? A roll of the die? If it's the latter, I'd love to see the charts. Do you roll random location? Random number of people around the scene? Random weather? Random time of day? Random whether the nemesis has a weapon on them? Or do you have an idea? Just because you didn't write it down doesn't mean you didn't plot ahead.
My point is, it is no different than any other session of D&D that would use an AP. Benign NPC's turn hostile all the time due to character actions or failed skill checks. Just because you added extra rules doesn't change that. Not everything can be plotted out. Players surprise us. But, to say you have no idea what the nemesis is now doing and how he might "possibly" appear in the future means you're just rolling random encounters. Which, for the tenth time this thread is legit. It is fun. But, many players sit down to D&D for a story.

If, again, you're just saying that a D&D GM presents things that are prepped, that's trivially true. Your argument would seem to function so long as I used the Monster Manual, for instance. Using prepped pieces -- foes, locations, setting -- does not mean plot goes from A to B to C. Trying to imply that 5e requires this, especially for the OP topic of having PCs connected to the setting, is a non-starter.

I have stated this many times in these posts. A to B to C happens. Sometimes it happens out of order, even in AP's. But if a DM is taking character motive into consideration, I bet they have an idea where B is, and C and D. It may not happen that way, but they have an idea.

 

[Nytmare]

I have stated this many times in these posts. A to B to C happens. Sometimes it happens out of order, even in AP's. But if a DM is taking character motive into consideration, I bet they have an idea where B is, and C and D. It may not happen that way, but they have an idea.

You need to pick a place for where you want your goal post to be.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Maybe you don't have one?

As stated earlier, I am discussing D&D, 5e specifically. I do not know what "pain points" are.

It's a generic term form outside of gaming to mean places in a process or life that cause friction and are difficult.

That sounds like a house-rule. Your multiple skill check rules also sound like an alternate version. That said, it also sounds like a fun session. But, the same exact situation could have happened with an any AP. And when this happened, did you not plot in your head what the nemesis might do? Or is going to be purely random? A roll of the die? If it's the latter, I'd love to see the charts. Do you roll random location? Random number of people around the scene? Random weather? Random time of day? Random whether the nemesis has a weapon on them? Or do you have an idea? Just because you didn't write it down doesn't mean you didn't plot ahead.

Ah, I see the argument. It's the "but you could have scripted the exact same thing (in an infinite universe of scripts)." The parenthetical is the part that's often left unspoken. That a thing can happen does not mean it must or should happen, and the idea that a game that is created in the moment could have been scripted, given the perfect attempt in a sea of infinites, is not a strong or even useful argument. You've essentially leveraged randomness in your argument that randomness doesn't fully exist.

For your questions -- no I did not plot what the nemesis might do. I played the game to find out what the nemesis would do. It was not purely random, it depended entirely on what the players declared as PC actions and what the results of those actions were. The available set of outcomes was therefore much more tied into PC desires (they drove the script, so to speak) and more varied in possibility than any scripting could have been. There are no charts. I do not roll random locations, if a new location is needed, it will be pretty well defined from the preceding fiction. The number of other people around, if relevent (and I can't see how it was here) is dependent on the fiction established and the actions declared. Same for time of day -- I mean, why would I need to determine this randomly, my players are probably going to tell me when they're doing a thing, if it matters. The nemesis didn't feature here -- to be perfectly frank, even at this point in the campaign (about 25 sessions later with more interaction with the nemesis' organization) I still don't really know who or what the nemesis is. The character background was a name and the destruction of their clan, no other details. In play, the nemesis has become a rival in another player set goal, so that's the level of interaction. The only thing I know is that the nemesis is powerful, has a competent organization answering to them, and is interested in the same goal as the PCs. I'll know more as the game goes on. I've even asked the player if they want to flesh out the nemesis more, and they're having fun right now and have decided they're not sure either. It seems we'll both find out.

My point is, it is no different than any other session of D&D that would use an AP. Benign NPC's turn hostile all the time due to character actions or failed skill checks. Just because you added extra rules doesn't change that. Not everything can be plotted out. Players surprise us. But, to say you have no idea what the nemesis is now doing and how he might "possibly" appear in the future means you're just rolling random encounters. Which, for the tenth time this thread is legit. It is fun. But, many players sit down to D&D for a story.

Again, this is a failure of understanding on your part. I had that same failure, for a long time. I completely bounced off of Burning Wheel in the aughts because I could not grasp how the game was telling me to run it -- I was stuck in the idea things were prepared or planned for by the GM (at least at the outline level) or were randomly determined, so when the rules were suggesting that the player gets what they want on a success, I couldn't reconcile it. Turns out, you have to toss the idea that the GM is proactive at all and that things follow the fiction in play. It's not an easy switch, especially for people that only have D&D or D&D style GM approach games (there's a number of them) as experience, because it absolutely doesn't run the traditional ways. In my 5e game, I run a hybrid -- some things I prep and plot (loosely, always willing to abandon), but a lot of things I leave up to the fiction to determine in play. This is neither pre-plotted by me nor is it random. It's driven by the players.

I have stated this many times in these posts. A to B to C happens. Sometimes it happens out of order, even in AP's. But if a DM is taking character motive into consideration, I bet they have an idea where B is, and C and D. It may not happen that way, but they have an idea.

At the end of my current campaign, we will be able to look back and see a full story, with ups and downs, and strong beats. Right now, I have no idea what that story will be, and can only tell you what's happened. I really don't know what comes next, and am looking forward to finding out (we're doing a rotation with Blades right now, so D&D is on temp hold). What I can tell you is that the game has focused almost entirely on PC motives and desires. Everything that's happened has been tied to those, because the players are the ones telling me what happens next. I react.

 

[Lanefan]

I know this is going to be a cop-out answer, but I see it in between. I do not view AP's as 1. Not in the slightest. They are a setting, with dozens of NPC's and villains, events that will happen no matter what the PC's do, and flavor (culture, ecosystem, magic items, etc.).

Most APs don't work very well if the players/PCs decide not to get on the train, as they're usually rather railroad-y. And this works fine at times, don't get me wrong, but if the players are the sort to whom railroads are bad things then a hard-line AP probably isn't the best place to put them.

A DM that does zero prep for a session, that just makes it up off the top of their head, is really just doing levelled (and sometimes not levelled) random encounters. But my guess is, most DM's, even ones that say they do, do not do that. They have their setting, which they know. They have locations the players can reach. They have an antagonist. They have inciting incidents to start the story. They even have (in their head) a possibility of conclusions at least for a session or two. Now do players surprise us? Yup. That's part of the fun. But if a DM has a campaign that has lasted a few months, and that DM can't predict how their players are going to react, then they are not paying attention.

Sure, but what of it? Even though a DM can more or less predict how the players/PCs will react to something, if the DM intentionally doesn't use that prediction to inform what comes next in the game and instead presents it neutrally, does it matter?

So do you see what I mean about it being both. Just because the DM didn't write a hundred pages on the next two sessions doesn't mean they don't know. And if they are trying to integrate their character's motives into the session (the topic of this thread), then they will have an idea how to work with that motive to create a story.
If they don't do any of that (A to B to C), then they are just using a random encounter table.

First off, even a random encounter table, when looked at in hindsight, will inevitably generate an A to B to C story of some sort. This is why talking about what's seen in hindsight is pointless.

But ahead of time and-or during the run of play, there's a rather massive amount of middle ground between 'the DM creates the story' and 'a random encounter table', most of which involves the players taking over and driving the story - in effect, forcing the DM to react to what they do rather than the more common situation where the players/PCs react to what the DM throws at them.

This can be as simple as the players/PCs deciding to turn their nose up at whatever hooks-foreshadowing-bread crumbs they've seen and instead going off and doing something unexpected - e.g. out of the blue they decide "Hell, we're fed up with working for this pair of ungrateful monarchs - we're going to buy a ship, hire a crew, and sail off into the sunset. Mr. DM, as we're in a harbour town we look to see if there's any ships for sale or, as a plan B, charter."

And yes, when looked at two years later in hindsight the party's decision to jump on a boat and sail away by default becomes 'B' to whatever 'A' just preceded it (with 'C' of course being whatever happens once they get to wherever they end up); but that has nothing whatsoever to do with either DM pre-planning or DM-placed random encounters. The players/party put themselves on that ship and forced the DM to react to their doing so.

 

[Fenris-77]

In PbtA games you have some minimal scritping in the form of Fronts that give you some direction in terms of resolution. You dont have that in D&D but you can certainly run the game in the same way. I actually write PbtA style fronts for my 5E games because it works so well. I vastly prefer it to prepping a whole adventure path style game, and it generates just as much interesting action and plot, for given values of those two words.