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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3404983" data-attributes="member: 2067">No, in the former case, the players provide the impetus for the DM to present them with challenges, rather than the DM scripting out which challenges can occur. No one player gets to steer the ship more than the others, and no player has a cakewalk. And in the latter case, the players make small, localized choices within a framework. Neither one inherently leads to a bad game.The new idea is, though, that the big thematic payoff isn't just sitting there waiting to be discovered -- that you, as a player, can help create your own dramatic payoff by informing the DM of what you want (through character actions and character choices), and that it comes out naturally from your actions, rather than waiting for you to search the right 5' square.Most DMs really are already on this path, at least lightly. What this new idea would seem to encourage is that *all* you are to do, as a DM, is add things that the players need, and add nothing else. If the players need a villain/plot, you insert it. If the players need a lighthearted dungeon crawl, you insert it. If the players need to play a PC beholder, you insert it. A DM always adds their own and the campaign's unique flavor and style to what they add, so it's not like you have no control, merely that you control what the players tell you to control.Running with this idea of game design, you'd still have a few interesting options here. #1 is to force the introverts to get along anyway -- force them into an unavoidable social scenario with some sort of tragic action: a sinking ship, an erupting volcano, an invading force of evil, some sort of massive-scale hardship that they can't avoid. Circumstances throw them together, and now they have to work together or die. #2 might be to run it competitively: if they actively dislike each other, you can almost do a PvP style game where each person has to accrue their own allies and resources from the other players. #3 might be a typical "you are hired by a wizard to fight monsters" kind of campaign where the characters only work together out of self-interest.And along the way, it might morph into something completely different. The idea is that the players, even by making these sort of characters, are informing the DM on what kind of game they want to play. You don't need a hook for a plot, you just need to inject something they have to react to, and how they react will inform if there is a real plot involved or if it's just background dressing for something else. You don't need a pre-existing storyline,  you can create one along with the players as you go.That doesn't mesh up with any dictionary definition of "game" I can find. One must adhere to the rules of the game, but the rules of D&D specifically tell you to change them if they don't work. Run with that. That makes it's potential unlimited, that makes it possible to truly let a player play rather than just lead a player in one direction or another. Again, this gives a player a greater feeling of control over the entire game, not just their character. If their decision to make a character who can walk through walls made the game world slightly different, that's empowering, that's giving them agency and making sure that the consequences of that (the character might really be a ghost! The character may be trapped between two planes! The campaign may mostly take place on the Ethereal!) are directly felt by the player, rather than simply a context.It would seem to be a DMs job to lead players to their goals (and to challenge them to make those goals). If someone wants to be a feared pirate lord, heck, what's wrong with having them *start* as a feared pirate lord with a fleet of ships at their beck and call. If someone wants to *become* a feared pirate lord, obviously you'll have a very naval campaign where personal power and charisma are very important. The characters might have Reputation scores and you might use some variant light armor rules and maybe have a lot of aquatic villains. Nothing in this idea of campaign design is at odds with any of that.It really doesn't, though. You've got an entire imagination at your disposal and all it has to do is grab a hold of whatever hooks the players give you, and, if they give you nothing, to be able to tease something out of them. Everything else falls into place pretty easily.You're being too judgmental, man. Yes, a story is enjoyable, but a story isn't much of a game, it's not up to the players to do anything but make minor decisions in a limited sphere that can't affect the outcome. I don't "play" Star Wars, I watch it. I barely "play" Final Fantasy X, too. I push buttons to continue a story where I have some limited control. That's not really a dig at either. I love Star Wars, and of course, I adore Final Fantasy, but they are basically stories. I don't feel like I'm making Luke save the death star, or that I'm choosing to destroy Sin, I feel like I'm watching great characters do that. What I'm trying to speak up about (and what Wright's article had me realize) is the ability of D&D to become basically a game, to open up the structure to be driven by what a player does rather than a story the DM wants to tell, so that the character, the avatar, and the world, can be more distinctly personal to the players. Your opinion is pretty darkly colored by your low enjoyment of his previous games. Most people (judging by the long-running, outside-gamer success of the Sims, for instance) have no problem projecting interpersonal drama and conflict onto babbling avatara. They have no problem playing with the rules and the game to manufacture their own dramatic stories. Everyone playing the Sims is kind of like their very own DM, the architect of their world and their stories. That's part of why Wright is a very unique game designer, and part of the power of that speech. He's saying most games don't realize the potential of player-created gaming. I can enjoy the story of PS:T, but it's one story I'll enjoy, not an endless field for pleasure.D&D has the distinct ability to take advantage of player-created gaming because of the open-ended nature of its rules. To a certain extent, it has embraced a bit of this, but many DMs appear to be stuck in story mode, where they have to create Star Wars or Final Fantasy or PS:T in their worlds. Rather, Wright would seem to advocate that the players will create all those things. All you need to do as a DM is react to them as they go about creating those things. Have the players tell you a story, rather than telling one to them.</blockquote>

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