D&D 5E Help me understand & find the fun in OC/neo-trad play...

[Umbran]

Of course. But we all know it gets rather tiring to add all the couching adjectives into everything we write. All the 'almosts' and 'for the most parts' and 'practicallys'. So everyone can feel free to assume I meant those terms should be added to my post, such that things are not 100%, but merely 99%.

Sorry. Rather the opposite. Folks should be able to assume you say what you actually mean, and not have to read your mind for what you might mean.

I mean, it also gets rather tiring having to read everything you write. If you are going to have folks make assumptions, maybe we can just not have you write at all - cut out the middle man, and all that.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the "only", "everything" and "nothing" here are overstatements. As a practical matter, completely ignoring PC backgrounds would be a mistake for a trad-GM, as they should be able to assume that the players would be more likely interested in and willing to engage with things related to those backgrounds.

Indeed. I don't think there are many games that are either 100% about the characters, or 0% about the characters. It's a spectrum, not two distinct categories. Like so many other things, and like those other things, tremendous harm is done by trying to force people into boxes.

 

[prabe]

Given the definitions, I can tell where to find the fun in the neo traid game.

The other types of play....but more so Triad....players don't do much in the game except play their character. They are in their view "just a player"

And this is a huge let down for a person who watches the ton of media from the last 50 years or so that has an overwhelming focus on "The Chosen One". The countless stories where some Normal Person....is, in fact, The Chosen One. This all has the message that the reader/watcher themselves could be a hidden Chosen One. Someday you will discover you are emperor of the galaxy. The list is long but Star Wars did it twice, Luke and Rae; The Matrix with Neo, Harry Potter and really going all the way back to "King of the World" Arragon.

The icing on the cake are the adventure video games. Most plots have the video game player as "The Chosen One".

So, when this type of person sits down to play a RPG, they very often want to play a "Chosen One Character". This is the OC side.

The neo triad side comes back as they also want to be the DM....well...at least have all the power of the DM, but none of the work or hard stuff. This might also go the route of saying "the DM is just a player" and "everyone is an equal player". A great many DMs wholly embrace this and will gladly say so.

For a lot of Neo Triad games...."nobody" wants to DM...everyone wants to play. So one person will agree to "be DM" for a bit. And part of the agreement is each of the players does some of the work of the RPG, to make the DMs job easy. The DM, in turn, agree to do whatever the players want....and gets the agreement for the future for when they switch DMing with another, that they get to do whatever they want too.

So, fun all around. The DM has to do very little work like world building, plot making or storytelling. Each player will do their part of making the world. The DM just needs to follow whatever each player tells them to do. Then after a short time that adventure will be over, and someone else will DM the next adventure. And repeat. Everyone gets exactly what they want, so everyone has fun.

Your description of Neotrad is nothing like my experience of it. Anyone paying attention will be the opposite of shocked by that.

 

[prabe]

Indeed. I don't think there are many games that are either 100% about the characters, or 0% about the characters. It's a spectrum, not two distinct categories. Like so many other things, and like those other things, tremendous harm is done by trying to force people into boxes.

I have played (briefly) in some games where the characters didn't matter at all to what was going on. I'd say "0% about the characters" isn't completely unpossible.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I have played (briefly) in some games where the characters didn't matter at all to what was going on. I'd say "0% about the characters" isn't completely unpossible.

I said "not many" not all. As you say, you played briefly. I'm sure there are some games were players sit around and just have in-character conversations too. But not many.

 

[prabe]

I said "not many" not all. As you say, you played briefly. I'm sure there are some games were players sit around and just have in-character conversations too. But not many.

Sorry, I misread you.

 

[overgeeked]

I have played (briefly) in some games where the characters didn't matter at all to what was going on. I'd say "0% about the characters" isn't completely unpossible.

I’ve played games like that, too. Not much fun.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Sorry. Rather the opposite. Folks should be able to assume you say what you actually mean, and not have to read your mind for what you might mean.

I mean, it also gets rather tiring having to read everything you write. If you are going to have folks make assumptions, maybe we can just not have you write at all - cut out the middle man, and all that.

Oh please. We are all intelligent beings. When someone says "People are fickle" for instance... we all know the person doesn't mean every single person across the entire globe is fickle. And we don't need that person to write "Most people are fickle" or "I think a lot of people are fickle" for us to understand the point they are trying to get across. We can read between the lines. And in fact, more often than not we should.

If you feel you need everything spelled out for you every single time someone doesn't append their phrasing with a conditional so that you can understand what's being said, you can wish for it... but it doesn't mean the rest of us have to go out of our way to make things easier for you.

 

[bloodtide]

Your description of Neotrad is nothing like my experience of it. Anyone paying attention will be the opposite of shocked by that.

I guess. Is your description in this thread somewhere?

I have: Everyone is a player. Everyone shares in the Dming duties, so the player called DM has to do very little of it. Each players character's personal individual story is front and center in the game. The focus of the game is the players/characters goals.

Indeed. I don't think there are many games that are either 100% about the characters, or 0% about the characters. It's a spectrum, not two distinct categories. Like so many other things, and like those other things, tremendous harm is done by trying to force people into boxes.

This is not true even just given the examples on the website.

The "classic" play cares nothing about the characters. Zero. They are a name and some stats on a page. And OSR is much the same. And the game rules are much more made this way. Did your 8th level character get bit by a simple giant spider....roll a save...maybe your character dies.

And Storytelling games are 100% about characters....that is the "story" part. The rules here bow to the story, always.

The fundamental question being asked here, if I understand it, is whether player preferences as expressed through PC backstories and what the engage with drives the direction of the campaign, as opposed to the GMs big plan.

Well, I'd add in the player's voice.

Triad play: a player could ask the DM to add something to a character. "Hey it would be cool if my character was a secret prince" or the like. But the DM has 100% control of the game and can say "no", or more likely "ok, lets just keep playing and see what happens". The player...might...offer some vague suggestions, once or twice. By the player in this game, wants to be 100% a player. They made the suggestion, and they sit way, way, way, way back and let the DM do whatever they want with it. The player is willing to accept any story by the DM, even if it is not exactly what they wanted 100%.

Neo Triad: Each player is a co-DM and has a part in making the game world. The one player called DM has very little say. At best the player called DM might ask one of the player co DM to change something. Just making the backstory for their character has to add to the game world. The player can't be "The Last SwordMaster" without all of that being part of the game world. The player has a fairly specific way they want things to happen to their character, so they set up everything they want. And tell the DM exactly what to do and how they want it done.

 

[prabe]

I guess. Is your description in this thread somewhere?

It's right here: D&D 5E - [+] Help me understand & find the fun in OC/neo-trad play...

But I'll repost it, since you're so attentive:

First of all, that article is kinda a mess--especially the OC/Neo-Trad part. Among other things, OC and Neo-Trad aren't quite the same thing. OC is more about what your character brings mechanically, tending (in at least one extreme) toward what someone with your stated preferences might describe as "winning the game at chargen." This is very much the typical approach by the end of D&D 3.x/PF1e. Neo-Trad is very much more aligned with the way 5e is built, where the character focus is, ideally, more narrative than mechanical. It's where the GM pulls material from the characters' backstories and builds adventures relevant to those backstories and other interests; the idea the players might have ideas about the setting (while still giving the GM primary authority over it) is very Neo-Trad, I think. There doesn't have to be a pre-constructed story--I'm probably the most Neo-Trad GM I know (at least the most out one) and I don't pre-write stories, everything that happens is a response to what the players do--but the focus of the story is very probably going to be on the characters, as opposed to Trad, where the story is the story no matter what characters the players bring.

Also this, from here: D&D 5E - [+] Help me understand & find the fun in OC/neo-trad play...

In my last call for backstories, I said something to the effect that the players should keep in mind that their characters were basically at the beginnings of their stories, and their backstories should reflect that in both amount and in content. I've had players give me more than 10,000 words of backstory before, and I agree that can be a lot to sort through to find what you need as GM, but I haven't ever asked for any given length of backstory. The ones I write--which I sometimes do, as something like an exercise, tend to be somewhere in the 250-750 word range, mostly toward the shorter end of that.

In my most recent campaign, I gave the players a 5500-ish word write up of the city they were starting in, told them they were all long-time residents (no fish-out-of-water), asked them to tell me about people, places, group, and events in the city and how their characters were connected to them, and asked them to make sure that each PC specifically knew two others (though they were all nodding acquaintances). This sort of thing is, I think, also neo-trad.

I have: Everyone is a player. Everyone shares in the Dming duties, so the player called DM has to do very little of it. Each players character's personal individual story is front and center in the game. The focus of the game is the players/characters goals.

Only your last sentence is entirely correct, and you make it sound so ... dirty; how dare the players have goals, and how dare we play with those goals as the focus. I am the only DM, though I invite input from the players--primarily, but not exclusively, before the campaign starts. While the character's stories are the main thrust of the game, there's some trading-off and balancing between them, so no, no given player character's personal individual story is always front and center.