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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 3624618" data-attributes="member: 1165">1) No.2) Nothing. I find player-driven/PC-focused campaigns to be more work than play. I get paid to work.3) With great difficulty. Generally I find my players to be proactive in how they achieve goals but not in choosing their goals; if I don't set goals for them the PCs will drift apart. (I literally saw a campaign fall apart after only two sessions due to unclear goals. The PCs split into two groups that wouldn't unite, even after they both got involved in a big combat.) I don't want to run five different games for five different PCs, which is what I find happens with player-driven campaigns. I don't have time for that, and it's not much fun for four players listening to one PC hogging his section of spotlight. (I might be saying goals when other people say quests.)Edit: I forgot about backstories! Every player-driven campaign I've been in has demanded a big backstory. Now I hated English class (too much writing pointless imagery essays and reading classics that have intimidated the teachers who worship them), one reason because I'd write something, hand it in, and have no idea what the mark I get back will be. Over time I got a certain grade, but I couldn't tell what I'd get for any regular assignment. This was quite different from biology (my favorite subject); I'd only get a bad mark on a scientific paper if it was my fault. (Same for math - I suck at it, but even someone with my poor math skills would get a better mark with more effort.) Putting effort into English didn't improve my marks at all.I feel the same way writing a backstory. No matter how clearly the GM expresses what they're looking for, I'm still dreading getting an "F" and have no way to predict how the GM will react - I can put no effort and get an "A"... or put a lot of effort and get an "F". (Not that I've ever had a GM actually assign numerical grades!)I finished up a Spirit of the Century campaign two weeks ago, which was quest-driven, and had an innovative "light and unfinished" backstory ruleset that made writing backstories fun. I doubt backstories of that short length could have supported a player-driven campaign.When recruiting players, unless you have a huge pool to choose from, you have to compromise. If you don't want a quest, but the other three players do, well, maybe you need to find a new group instead of trying to push something on them. (Of course, by all means ask if any of the other players want a player-driven campaign.) My current group is pretty small; at least three members like player-driven campaigns at least occasionally, even though they've all train-wrecked after a time.I can't stress how much I agree with this. The last player-driven campaign I was in was Exalted. Two of the players had character concepts that didn't mesh with the group at all. One just wanted to breed yeddim (big oxen), and one just wanted to build stuff. I had a slightly more detailed character concept (I wanted to topple a dynasty, and was an assassin). Another character was a social engineer (and the player kept "dissing" me for having such a shallow character concept). Another character was a charismatic warlord, and finally the other character was some kind of twisted spellcaster.So I tried to make alliances with some characters in order to ensure we had a common goal. The warlord wanted to conquer the world, which meant he would have to topple the dynasty my character so hated... so I became his spymaster. I once really needed to kill a dragonblooded, but needed help, so I asked the twisted mage for help. He said I owed him a favor... give him magic items from people I killed. Being a character who barely understood magic, and (as a player) literally being annoyed with the GM for actually foisting too many magic items at me, I had no problem with the deal. I killed bad guys and gave their magic items to the mage. Unfortunately both players had to leave (one got sick, the other had to leave the country over the summer). Before the warlord left, we did have one massive battle where we finally got the social engineer and the other two PCs to cooperate with the warlord and I to topple a big powerful kingdom. I think the social engineer realized that if he didn't work with the other characters the game was less fun for everyone.Ensuring the players actually work together when making their characters might go a long way to mitigating this problem. (I was "shot down" when mentioning that in that campaign.)</blockquote>

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