We give ourselves a lot of credit for creativity as GMs and players of tabletop RPGs. We look down our noses at MMO players, so many of them playing with a character build they found on a website dedicated to min-maxing their build, playing through cookie-cutter quest chains and bashing yet another wolf on the skull to collect pelts for an NPC.
We give ourselves TONS of credit. But are we really that much more creative? Are we really doing something that is so much different? Where are the opportunities for creativity for DMs and players?
Double Edged Creativity
As a DM, you're in a tricky spot not too many others will see. It's important that DMs exercise and develop their own creativity -- either in game preparation, or improvising as their players go off the reservation, or a blend of both.
At the same time, DMs are expected to create opportunities for PC creativity. So, it's not enough to come up with a good story, you've got to leave some of it for your players to come up with -- and be able to bring it home in the end.
Coming up with your own ideas -- there's lot of support for that out there. You can use print adventures, random generators of all kinds, tarot cards or story dice. The real challenge is trying to help your players be creative.
Creativity as Choice
From a certain point of view, any time a person has a choice to make there is an opportunity for creativity. That doesn't mean every choice is creative -- some follow safe, well worn paths. But sometimes a person -- player or DM or chef or meter reader -- makes a choice that is more or less different from one of those well-worn paths. And, whether it's successful or not, that different choice is a creative one.
So, as a DM, if we want to give our PCs opportunities to be creative, we need to give them choices.
The most choice-rich part of most games -- and especially D&D -- is combat. Players are constantly making choices, everything from where to step as they move to avoid dangerous attacks of opportunity, to which targets to attack, which powers or resources to expend in that attack, and so on. It's no wonder most games end up spending so much time in combat scenes -- just by the nature of the number of choices players make in those scenes, they're able to be much more creative.
Players also have a very concrete idea of what they expect to be able to accomplish as they make those choices -- they have a pretty good idea of how hard it will be to hit their target, and have some expectations for how much impact their attack will have.
In most games, combat doesn't need a lot of help creating opportunities for creativity.
Creative Exploration, Creative Roleplaying
What does it require to allow our players to exhibit a level of creative choice in their exploration scenes as they do in combat? Or in Roleplaying Scenes?
Think about the a typical old school dungeon. The PCs have their marching order, and they reach an intersection. They can follow the corridor to the east, or to the west. How do players respond to such a binary choice? Maybe they'll just go with some habit, like sticking with the left-hand wall. Maybe they'll examine the floor, looking for tracks or other signs that might help them decide. Really inventive parties might decide that what they really want is straight ahead, and pull out a pickaxe and start digging.
View attachment 56466
Again, the less creative options (just picking an option and going with it) are not especially creative. The PC who took a look at the floor may have a character who's perception skill is fairly high -- and he got the idea to look for tracks by thinking about what his character could do. The nitwits with the pickaxe, on the other hand, are thinking about the environment their in, their expectations for what they would find, and they're trying to bend the world to their ideas.
What's interesting is that there are a couple of sources of those creative choices there. Presented with a choice, one example player looked at his character sheet and found something he's good at, and tried to apply it to the situation.
The players trying to dig through the walls, on the other hand, are reacting to the information they have about the game world. For some reason they have en expectation that what they seek is behind that wall and not down either side passage, so they're going to dig their way to it. In the end, that creative choice is based on details that they've been given by the DM (even if the DM never intended for them to dig through that wall in the first place).
Most players will look for fresh choices in both places -- on their character sheet, and in the world around their characters. And there's not much inherently better or worse about either. Some games seem to favor character-based choices, some seem to favor world-based choices. And there will be a lot of variability from one DM to another, too.
The primary difference is that those characters are going to move on and make another set of choices soon. They dig through the wall, discover another passage, and follow that passage for a while. Eventually they come to another choice.
In the case of the players making choices mostly based on character choices, the selection of choices won't have changed much when they get to that next choice. The PC who was good at perception is still good at perception, and he'll try that again.
But in the case of the players reacting to the world around them, the choices are more varied. Sure, they might dig again, but the circumstances have changed -- they've made a few turns and are no longer sure where they think the room they're looking for is. And so on.
So What, Windbag?
So, really, as a DM, what does this mean to you?
So, as a DM, you don't have a whole lot of control over the creative options your players find in their character sheet. Once the game has been chosen, and the player has made his character, the DM is mostly done.
But the environmental choices that your players have are entirely dependent upon you. However you construct the world of the game for them -- whether it's all text, or it includes images or music or whatever else -- all of that should have a clear focus on providing details for the players that give them options.
Think about it -- if the information in a text block you read to your party about the room they've just entered doesn't provide options and ideas for them, why should they bother to listen?
Give Them Permission To Add
Some newer game systems -- notably FATE-based games, but not limited to them -- have started to include mechanics that allow players to add details to the world around them -- to actually inject their creative ideas into the story.
In fate, the aspect-based mechanics of the game allow players to spend game resources and make a declaration about a scene. Maybe they declare that the weather is misty, making the streets slick, or there's a fire extinguisher on the wall that they can grab. This is an incredibly powerful way to share the creative work of the game with players, and there's no reason why you can't whip up a version of it for any game system. The most important piece you need to consider is how it fits into the basic economies of your system. Does making a declaration cost an action, or a healing surge, or a bennie, or some other game resource. And how will you resolve their attempt at the declaration? Can they just decide that it's there, or do they have to make some sort of a roll for that detail to become part of the game world?
In next week's column, I'll lay out an idea for adding fate-style declarations to your game -- whatever the game system -- and discuss some of the way to try to control how much your players use it and how powerful it can be in your game.
Bottom Line: It's about Letting Your Players Drive
In the end, DMs layout a roadmap for the game, and the players get to choose where to drive. If they have lots of interesting choices to make, and have enough information about the world to be able to make decisions like taking a shortcut through a parking lot rather than waiting at a traffic light -- and if that bit of creativity can be rewarded with some in-game advantage -- then your game will have achieved a good level of shared creative expression for everyone at the table.
How do YOU give your players Creative Power in the game?
We give ourselves TONS of credit. But are we really that much more creative? Are we really doing something that is so much different? Where are the opportunities for creativity for DMs and players?
Double Edged Creativity
As a DM, you're in a tricky spot not too many others will see. It's important that DMs exercise and develop their own creativity -- either in game preparation, or improvising as their players go off the reservation, or a blend of both.
At the same time, DMs are expected to create opportunities for PC creativity. So, it's not enough to come up with a good story, you've got to leave some of it for your players to come up with -- and be able to bring it home in the end.
Coming up with your own ideas -- there's lot of support for that out there. You can use print adventures, random generators of all kinds, tarot cards or story dice. The real challenge is trying to help your players be creative.
Creativity as Choice
From a certain point of view, any time a person has a choice to make there is an opportunity for creativity. That doesn't mean every choice is creative -- some follow safe, well worn paths. But sometimes a person -- player or DM or chef or meter reader -- makes a choice that is more or less different from one of those well-worn paths. And, whether it's successful or not, that different choice is a creative one.
So, as a DM, if we want to give our PCs opportunities to be creative, we need to give them choices.
The most choice-rich part of most games -- and especially D&D -- is combat. Players are constantly making choices, everything from where to step as they move to avoid dangerous attacks of opportunity, to which targets to attack, which powers or resources to expend in that attack, and so on. It's no wonder most games end up spending so much time in combat scenes -- just by the nature of the number of choices players make in those scenes, they're able to be much more creative.
Players also have a very concrete idea of what they expect to be able to accomplish as they make those choices -- they have a pretty good idea of how hard it will be to hit their target, and have some expectations for how much impact their attack will have.
In most games, combat doesn't need a lot of help creating opportunities for creativity.
Creative Exploration, Creative Roleplaying
What does it require to allow our players to exhibit a level of creative choice in their exploration scenes as they do in combat? Or in Roleplaying Scenes?
Think about the a typical old school dungeon. The PCs have their marching order, and they reach an intersection. They can follow the corridor to the east, or to the west. How do players respond to such a binary choice? Maybe they'll just go with some habit, like sticking with the left-hand wall. Maybe they'll examine the floor, looking for tracks or other signs that might help them decide. Really inventive parties might decide that what they really want is straight ahead, and pull out a pickaxe and start digging.
View attachment 56466
Again, the less creative options (just picking an option and going with it) are not especially creative. The PC who took a look at the floor may have a character who's perception skill is fairly high -- and he got the idea to look for tracks by thinking about what his character could do. The nitwits with the pickaxe, on the other hand, are thinking about the environment their in, their expectations for what they would find, and they're trying to bend the world to their ideas.
What's interesting is that there are a couple of sources of those creative choices there. Presented with a choice, one example player looked at his character sheet and found something he's good at, and tried to apply it to the situation.
The players trying to dig through the walls, on the other hand, are reacting to the information they have about the game world. For some reason they have en expectation that what they seek is behind that wall and not down either side passage, so they're going to dig their way to it. In the end, that creative choice is based on details that they've been given by the DM (even if the DM never intended for them to dig through that wall in the first place).
Most players will look for fresh choices in both places -- on their character sheet, and in the world around their characters. And there's not much inherently better or worse about either. Some games seem to favor character-based choices, some seem to favor world-based choices. And there will be a lot of variability from one DM to another, too.
The primary difference is that those characters are going to move on and make another set of choices soon. They dig through the wall, discover another passage, and follow that passage for a while. Eventually they come to another choice.
In the case of the players making choices mostly based on character choices, the selection of choices won't have changed much when they get to that next choice. The PC who was good at perception is still good at perception, and he'll try that again.
But in the case of the players reacting to the world around them, the choices are more varied. Sure, they might dig again, but the circumstances have changed -- they've made a few turns and are no longer sure where they think the room they're looking for is. And so on.
So What, Windbag?
So, really, as a DM, what does this mean to you?
So, as a DM, you don't have a whole lot of control over the creative options your players find in their character sheet. Once the game has been chosen, and the player has made his character, the DM is mostly done.
But the environmental choices that your players have are entirely dependent upon you. However you construct the world of the game for them -- whether it's all text, or it includes images or music or whatever else -- all of that should have a clear focus on providing details for the players that give them options.
Think about it -- if the information in a text block you read to your party about the room they've just entered doesn't provide options and ideas for them, why should they bother to listen?
Give Them Permission To Add
Some newer game systems -- notably FATE-based games, but not limited to them -- have started to include mechanics that allow players to add details to the world around them -- to actually inject their creative ideas into the story.
In fate, the aspect-based mechanics of the game allow players to spend game resources and make a declaration about a scene. Maybe they declare that the weather is misty, making the streets slick, or there's a fire extinguisher on the wall that they can grab. This is an incredibly powerful way to share the creative work of the game with players, and there's no reason why you can't whip up a version of it for any game system. The most important piece you need to consider is how it fits into the basic economies of your system. Does making a declaration cost an action, or a healing surge, or a bennie, or some other game resource. And how will you resolve their attempt at the declaration? Can they just decide that it's there, or do they have to make some sort of a roll for that detail to become part of the game world?
In next week's column, I'll lay out an idea for adding fate-style declarations to your game -- whatever the game system -- and discuss some of the way to try to control how much your players use it and how powerful it can be in your game.
Bottom Line: It's about Letting Your Players Drive
In the end, DMs layout a roadmap for the game, and the players get to choose where to drive. If they have lots of interesting choices to make, and have enough information about the world to be able to make decisions like taking a shortcut through a parking lot rather than waiting at a traffic light -- and if that bit of creativity can be rewarded with some in-game advantage -- then your game will have achieved a good level of shared creative expression for everyone at the table.
How do YOU give your players Creative Power in the game?
