Let The Players Manage Themselves Part 3, waitaminute...

[Lanefan]

I think you are right about this. I love the story. I love the game. Simulation beyond does it pass the BS test doesn't interest me at all. And let's face it, with fantasy in general, and D&D in particular, it’s relatively easy to pass that particular test...especially when you are helped out by strong game and strong story.

Strong beer helps too.

Many a story has been saved by it.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

My pet hate is players who let "what their character would/wouldn't do" get in the way of the game:

"Even though X is the best course of action my character would do Y, making our goals ten times harder to achieve."

Dude WTF?!?!? You are the one running your character. Now would be a good time to decide your character has outgrown that particular limitation and do what needs to be done.

Assuming, of course, that it's all about "the goal".

To which I say, to hell with "the goal". Let's instead have fun waving at the goal as it goes by, while we laugh at each others' foibles and occasionally finish an adventure that wasn't even the adventure we started out to do but it got in the way somehow and here we are with no real idea of what we just did but three of us are dead and the rest are stinkin' rich and while we might get the dead guys back tomorrow tonight's for celebrating our survival!

In other words, "bad" courses of action are the best (and by "best", I mean most fun) ones more often than you'd expect.

What if they don't?

Do you just simulate the common real-life situation where strangers meet, fail to hit it off, develop mutual mistrust and go their separate ways?

Yep. Except in my game they don't go their separate ways; they stay together and continue their mutual mistrust (often enough it's a justified mistrust, but whatever) as they head out into the field plotting all the way, then kill each other off partway through the adventure when some of the plots try to hatch....

Those are the stories that get told and retold for years to come.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

In a more serious vein, I think it's important to make a distinction between the world before play starts and after. My take: initially, a homebrew is my baby, it's all art-for-my-sake; a creative outlet. But as the campaign start date approaches, that same homebrew is now a tool.

I see it as more of a rich vein of ore in a mine...you build the world, give it a flavour, a history, some life, cultures, etc....and then mine it for whatever stories it can give you. Then, present said stories to the players and see if they bite, or better yet take said stories and run with them.

And, to answer another issue posted elsewhere this thread: story advancement and role-playing are absolutely not mutually exclusive! If your character is meeting the King, then I as DM take the role of King and you role-play...or act out...your character. If things go well and you make a good impression, you (and your party) might get a royal commission to carry out some adventuring duty somewhere. If things don't go so well and you get thrown out of the palace, you (and your party) had best seek employment elsewhere. Either way, *direct* story consequences and advancement achieved only through role-playing (no dice need be rolled).

Lanefan

 

[Greg K]

Yep. Except in my game they don't go their separate ways; they stay together and continue their mutual mistrust (often enough it's a justified mistrust, but whatever) as they head out into the field plotting all the way, then kill each other off partway through the adventure when some of the plots try to hatch....

Or, the one character that everyone mistrusts eventually becomes one of the most noble and trusted members of the group.

 

[Lanefan]

Or, the one character that everyone mistrusts eventually becomes one of the most noble and trusted members of the group.

Ayup. Seen it happen. (though I'd hedge a bit on the "noble" part...he *was* an Assassin, after all)

Lanefan

 

[Snoweel]

To say I am creating story right now by existing is an error in rhetoric (one Snoweel made earlier in the thread).

"All the world is not, of course, a stage, but the crucial ways in which it isn't are not easy to specify"

-Erving Goffman, 'Performances' in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

I'm a bit more confused on this one. Why would failing to achieve your goals in game be to slow for your liking?

Actually, it is too slow in real time, as I sit at the gaming table.

Wouldn't you prefer achieving them according to your own ability? Rather than a DM, say, cheating in your favor?

What I want, is for my character to be in the right place, at the right time, often enough for him to have a ridiculously interesting life.

I don't want to chase up a supposedly important plot hook only to find it leads to mindless clearing of a kobold warren that turns out to be completely unconnected to the higher goal.

I want my character to be touched by fate so that he manages to live a life (at least while I'm pulling his strings) that is inordinately choc-full of adventure. I want every choice I make to lead somewhere interesting, whether it's good or bad.

At least while I'm sitting at the table. What my character gets up to between sessions doesn't interest me half as much.

Also, how do you determine the "biggest" adventure in town? I know most adventure modules I've read only have 1 in a town or even 1 mixed with other things and a town (I call 'em "Town & Dungeon" modules ) But even if I was playing in a big city with a great deal of adventures, "big" is a bit hard to relate.

By "biggest" I mean the most exciting, involved and best prepared edge of the campaign flowchart.

I want to take the course of action that the DM is most excited about because this will most likely lead to the best adventure. Obviously the DM knows this information better than myself or my character so it's up to him to make it clear.

And if I'm being railroaded I don't want to know about it.

Those are the stories that get told and retold for years to come.

badwrongfun

 

[Snoweel]

Interestingly, I was just reading Radney-Macfarland's 'Save My Game' article in Dungeon 155 and came across his own reference to "sandbox" play:

Oftentimes DMs forget the general principle of hooks when they make their campaigns. Some make the critical mistake of making a place they believe “could be real”, not realizing that few players are interested in the models for trade and agriculture of their game world—since much of the game is a power fantasy. Others are so fixated with their campaign’s overarching story that they overlook the fact that this form of storytelling already has an audience (and cast) of real people in the form of players and their characters. In the end, these DMs are often trapped creating hooks that interest only themselves. And as the DM, if you’re only interesting yourself then you’ve lost a good chunk of your audience.

It’s much better to have a sandbox approach to story and roleplaying. Throw out loose threads, see who bites, figure out why they bite, and react to the story rather than driving it autocratically from the start.

I see there is more than one definition of 'sandbox' play. Unsurprising I guess.

 

[Umbran]

I say, if that mud is not fit for consumption, then that mud manufacturer is BadWrongFun !!!

Just FYI - purposely misstating another posters position may seem funny, but it generally doesn't come off well. It's kind of rude, really. So please, don't do that again. Thanks.

If folks have questions about that, please take them to e-mail with any of the mods.

 

[Mallus]

I see it as more of a rich vein of ore in a mine...you build the world, give it a flavour, a history, some life, cultures, etc....and then mine it for whatever stories it can give you.

That's a good a way to look at it. When I called a homebrew a 'tool', I was really only trying to make the point that, if you intend to actually run a campaign in your setting, you should stop thinking of it as 'art'.

Then again, I don't think you think of art as 'art', at least while you're in the process of making it.

 

[Aeolius]

While I agree 4e is less simulationist friendly (I used to be one when I started with 3.x and I would've hated 4e back then), I think it's even more suited to narrativist play than 3.x was.

Typically I prefer my D&D games to be a cooperative venture of interactive fiction.

A pity 4e removed so many elements from that game, that I consider essential to my perception of D&D. I remember when 2e was released. 2e removed many races and classes as well. I simply chose to skip the 2e core rules.

A pity 4e assumed we would drop our current campaigns like yesterday's garbage. I like my current campaign. And no, the character conversion trick of "have a weird 3e PC? Try a 4e warlock." doesn't work for me.

And then there was James Wyatt, who clenched the deal with "D&D is a game about slaying horrible monsters, not a game about traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people." in "Races and Classes" (pg. 34)