Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="PapersAndPaychecks" data-source="post: 3987721" data-attributes="member: 28854">Well, I don't see all this in quite the same way.I find it enhances story if I don't write plots at all.&nbsp; To me, the story isn't something that's preconceived.&nbsp; It emerges naturally in the course of the game.Every player character is under pressure of some kind--but it's the player who gives them that motivation.&nbsp; (It's often as simple as, &quot;I need to get hold of a very large amount of money for reason X so I became an adventurer.&quot;)&nbsp; Theoretically as a DM I'm on-hand to help the players decide on a motivation if they don't have one, but in practice I haven't needed to do that for years.Each player struggles to achieve the player character's motives in a hostile and dangerous world.&nbsp; The things that happen to them as they do are the story.&nbsp; Therefore story is the result of the game, rather than a process within it.Now, sometimes, I'll want the players to go in a particular direction or pass through a particular obstacle.&nbsp; I do think there's a place for that in D&amp;D.&nbsp; It's called a dungeon.If the players choose to go into a dungeon, then they know their choices of destination will be restricted.&nbsp; By great big thick rock walls.&nbsp; They usually make the choice to enter the dungeon because it gets them more loot than hanging around outside in the wilderness; once they're in there, they're playing a game of tactical exploration and combat on a restricted gameboard, and they know it.But I don't agree with the idea of making the outside world into a kind of super-dungeon with its own thick rock walls (or impassable mountains or whatever).&nbsp; It's a place where the players get to do free-form roleplaying however they like.&nbsp; Same with towns and cities.It helps me a lot that I run a system where you don't have to pre-prepare stat blocks, you can just make them up on the fly.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="PapersAndPaychecks, post: 3987721, member: 28854"] Well, I don't see all this in quite the same way. I find it enhances story if I don't write plots at all. To me, the [i]story[/i] isn't something that's preconceived. It emerges naturally in the course of the game. Every player character is under pressure of some kind--but it's the player who gives them that motivation. (It's often as simple as, "I need to get hold of a very large amount of money for reason X so I became an adventurer.") Theoretically as a DM I'm on-hand to help the players decide on a motivation if they don't have one, but in practice I haven't needed to do that for years. Each player struggles to achieve the player character's motives in a hostile and dangerous world. The things that happen to them as they do are the story. Therefore story is the [i]result[/i] of the game, rather than a process within it. Now, sometimes, I'll want the players to go in a particular direction or pass through a particular obstacle. I do think there's a place for that in D&D. It's called a [i]dungeon[/i]. If the players choose to go into a dungeon, then they know their choices of destination will be restricted. By great big thick rock walls. They usually make the choice to enter the dungeon because it gets them more loot than hanging around outside in the wilderness; once they're in there, they're playing a game of tactical exploration and combat on a restricted gameboard, and they know it. But I don't agree with the idea of making the outside world into a kind of super-dungeon with its own thick rock walls (or impassable mountains or whatever). It's a place where the players get to do free-form roleplaying however they like. Same with towns and cities. It helps me a lot that I run a system where you don't have to pre-prepare stat blocks, you can just make them up on the fly. ;) [/QUOTE]

Verification