GMing: A D4 of Design-Run-Discuss-Reshape to Kick Off a Campaign

In science and business processes go through planning, doing, checking, and adjusting which is in a turn a version of the scientific method. Use an RPG version of this method to improve your game and resolve problems. Work hand in hand with your players to create a campaign and adventures designed specifically for their characters and the goals they are pursuing. Use Design-Run-Discuss-Reshape (DRDR) to kick off a new campaign.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay​

D&D and Pathfinder have books that cover adventure paths: connected adventures for a GM to run for her players. The challenge is if the group can make it through the whole thing and hopefully have lots of fun doing so. RPGs can be run other ways however.

Imagine pitching a game and setting to your players and working in their suggestions for additions and changes. Having those players make characters based on the world and setting the group came up with. The GM then discussing how character creation went and how well the PCs fit in to the concept the group came up with. The GM and players then doing any needed tweaks to finalize the setting and PCs. Then the GM creates an adventures tailor made to those PCs and the goals and interests they want to pursue. And as the game progresses, both GM and players continue to play, review, and adjust as the story unfolds cooperatively.

The goal is no longer to complete the adventures. The goal as players is to see what happens next. Can the players’ characters achieve their goals and dreams? Not even the GM knows. Everyone keeps playing to find out.

Consider using the big hardcover or six softcovers only as reference and not to kick off your next campaign. Try DRDR and see the machinations and scheming of your PCs come to life.

1. Design

The GM decides on a system and genre and the basics of setting. No adventure building yet. The other players discuss this broad pitch and narrow it down. They come up with NPCs their PCs might interact with and jobs they might want to take. They consider what characters to create.

Example: I’d like to run the Alien RPG for you. You can be space truckers or frontier colonists either freelance or working for the man. You’ll have a ship and be based out of Novgorod Station. The players discuss. They want to play frontier colonists doing salvage, survey, and courier work using a deep space salvage starship freelance. We come up with named NPCs including a dock master, colonial admin, street rat informant, tech company liaison, a scientist with backers, and a ship inspector. They will make a company agent, pilot, roughneck, and scientist. The roughneck player really wants to use the starship crane.

2. Run

The PCs run through character creation. The GM answers any questions they have. When finished, each player sends the GM a copy of their character. They include goals for their characters, some secret.

Example: The company agent has the following personal agenda: The Company is holding back information from you. What? And why? The GM decides to dangle information pertaining to this agenda on this for the opening scene of the campaign. Along with some possible crane work.

3. Discuss

During character creation, the players may want some changes made. The GM may also make suggestions.

Example: The GM knew the player of the scientist was torn between that and the profession of medic. The GM tells the player that a medic would fit really well with the personal agenda of: You have some unusual (but classified) medical reports that the Company is looking for. Find out why they are so important. The player says he’d like to see a medlab added to the ship as soon as possible if he decides to play a medic.

4. Reshape

Any suggested changes are implemented if desired. The GM will then be ready to design the opening scene.

Example: The player liked the medic idea and also wants the agenda of: You are addicted to a strong painkiller. Protect your stash—and your secret. The GM agrees and can tie this agenda into the first scene. An offer of a medlab from the Company is extremely likely. Hooks firmly attached and dangling. And the GM has some leverage for the Company to use if they find out the PCs secret which in turn will generate more experience points for that player.

DRDR is a cycle. Once the GM and players run through one cycle it circles back around to design. The GM can now design the opening scene and possible adventure using the Company and the secrets swirling around the PCs as a springboard. Plus the crane. Using DRDR for adventure design will be covered in a future article.

 

[pemerton]

This essay by Ron Edwards seems fairly relevant: http://adept-press.com/wordpress/wp-content/media/setting_dissection.pdf

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm all for this approach to a new game. I like when a game makes this kind of process a part of the character creation process, but I think even games that don't definitely benefit from using a method like that recommended here by Mr. Dunwoody. It just helps the PCs seem like they're a part of the world, and that the game will be more about their exploits, rather than being a story featuring the PCs.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

I'm all for this approach to a new game. I like when a game makes this kind of process a part of the character creation process, but I think even games that don't definitely benefit from using a method like that recommended here by Mr. Dunwoody. It just helps the PCs seem like they're a part of the world, and that the game will be more about their exploits, rather than being a story featuring the PCs.

I agree with you. Even if you go right into a prepped campaign path after this creation session the PCs are more invested. I believe Paizo has the free campaign player's guide for just this type of thing. And Wizards likely uses custom made backgrounds in some cases.

I am running my current Alien game using this method. My players do like it but sometimes they slip back into old habits. Even trying to address characters by character name instead of player name is challenging to remember to do. However, they really do feel in charge of their own destinies and even when things go poorly they simply chalk it up to it being what the world throws at them and they find a way to go around. It has been fascinating to watch. So far, also a bit more work for me but it has been worth it.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

This premise is the fundamental cornerstone of both PbtA games (like Apocalypse World) and FitD games (like Blades in the Dark). It's probably most designed into Blades for its task resolution system, where action is this little back and forth between Player describing and picking their action with GM then telling the player how risky and possible consequences should player still want to peruse, followed by who gets to narrate result based on success or failure of the die roll.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

This premise is the fundamental cornerstone of both PbtA games (like Apocalypse World) and FitD games (like Blades in the Dark). It's probably most designed into Blades for its task resolution system, where action is this little back and forth between Player describing and picking their action with GM then telling the player how risky and possible consequences should player still want to peruse, followed by who gets to narrate result based on success or failure of the die roll.

I like having the GM describe failure and the player describe success. I have had players decline an offer to describe what happens. Some players like having the GM describe not only the world but also the outcomes of rolls win or lose.

 

[pemerton]

I don't fuss too much over who gets to do the actual narration. For me, it's about what happens once the action resolution mechanics are invoked?

My own gold standard here - not to say it's unique, just that of the systems I know it perhaps states the idea most clearly - is Burning Wheel: on a successful check the PC achieves both task and intent, while on a failed check at least one of those is not achieved and the GM - by drawing both on established fiction and on other relevant considerations (eg PC Beliefs) decides which, why and how.

In BW it is still assumed that the GM will actually narrate successes, but that narration must incorporate success in respect of intent and task.

 

[Schmoe]

Great, thought-provoking article. Thanks! That general decision loop is embedded in many things. In the US military I've seen it as the OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

 

[pemerton]

The GM and players then doing any needed tweaks to finalize the setting and PCs. Then the GM creates an adventures tailor made to those PCs and the goals and interests they want to pursue. And as the game progresses, both GM and players continue to play, review, and adjust as the story unfolds cooperatively.

The goal is no longer to complete the adventures. The goal as players is to see what happens next. Can the players’ characters achieve their goals and dreams? Not even the GM knows. Everyone keeps playing to find out.

<snip>

DRDR is a cycle. Once the GM and players run through one cycle it circles back around to design. The GM can now design the opening scene and possible adventure using the Company and the secrets swirling around the PCs as a springboard.

I'm not sure how you envisage reconciling the GM creates an adventure with everyone keeps playing to find out.

In the game that made that second phrase popular (ie Apocalpyse World) there is no adventure (possible or otherwise) that the GM creates.

One of the best treatments of play to find out based on character development is Christopher Kubaski's Interactive Toolkit from the early/mid-90s. From part four:

unlike a gamemaster [in the traditional sense], you does not come up with “adventures.”‘ You don’t arrive with a scenario to “run” because the Leads have created goals for their characters. What you do is provide opportunities for the Lead characters to achieve those Goals and obstacles to prevent the attainment of those goals.​

I think good advice for GMing "play to find out" RPGs needs to focus on (i) how to establish opportunities and obstacles, and (ii) how to establish consequences for actions, especially failed actions. (i) and (ii) are interrelated, as consequences include opportunities and obstacles. I think that the difficulty of doing (i) and (ii) well is one of the things that encourages RPGers to rely on pre-authored adventures (whether their own, or purchased modules). But once we have a pre-authored adventure, the idea of playing to find out is largely gone, as what will happen has already been established - it's there in the adventure's pages!

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

I'm not sure how you envisage reconciling the GM creates an adventure with everyone keeps playing to find out.

In the game that made that second phrase popular (ie Apocalpyse World) there is no adventure (possible or otherwise) that the GM creates.

One of the best treatments of play to find out based on character development is Christopher Kubaski's Interactive Toolkit from the early/mid-90s. From part four:

unlike a gamemaster [in the traditional sense], you does not come up with “adventures.”‘ You don’t arrive with a scenario to “run” because the Leads have created goals for their characters. What you do is provide opportunities for the Lead characters to achieve those Goals and obstacles to prevent the attainment of those goals.​

I think good advice for GMing "play to find out" RPGs needs to focus on (i) how to establish opportunities and obstacles, and (ii) how to establish consequences for actions, especially failed actions. (i) and (ii) are interrelated, as consequences include opportunities and obstacles. I think that the difficulty of doing (i) and (ii) well is one of the things that encourages RPGers to rely on pre-authored adventures (whether their own, or purchased modules). But once we have a pre-authored adventure, the idea of playing to find out is largely gone, as what will happen has already been established - it's there in the adventure's pages!

The whole article explains how I envision doing this. The GM creates the adventure the players through their characters want to go on. It isn't complicated. Design happens then run. The design part includes the player input.

You could just wing it at the table but in a game like Alien I'd spend too much time writing the adventure as we play and not enough time running the game. So, you get player input. You write an adventure based on that input. You run it. The players discuss how it went. The GM takes the feedback. Design happens again on both the GM and player side. And more running.

Sometimes you have to wing it. That's why you have all those NPCs, locations, and PC interests to fall back on. But I would never try to wing an entire four hour session. That would be a tremendous amount of effort and stress.

If you think an adventure is a script that that the GM runs the players through then your definition varies wildly from mine. The adventure has challenges listed, NPC and xeno stats, rewards, etc. Trying to come up with all that on the fly would take a lot of time away from actually playing to see what the PCs do, where they go, who they talk to, who they fight, and what rewards they might earn.