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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 8632199" data-attributes="member: 6670763">The topic of player engagement is the topic of player expectations and player agency. And it's the topic that I think the vast majority of players and GMs for the last four decades have gotten completely wrong.The thing is, RPGs are not a medium to tell stories. RPGs suck for telling stories. RPGs are not books, TV shows, movies, or narrative focused videogames. All these storytelling mediums are mediums of passively consuming fiction that has already been produced. Playing an RPG is nothing like that.Unfortunately, the common mainstream assumption of what an RPG is and how a great campaign is being played is that the GM is telling a wonderful story, and at certain point the players have to figure out what the "protagonists" of the story are supposed to do next before the GM will continue telling the story.If the GM is able to write and perform a great story, this can produce some degree of entertainment.When we are talking about player engagement, we usually mean players thinking ahead and making proactive choices to steer the story in the directions they want. But to do that, the players must be able to to be proactive and chose the direction of the events in the campaign. And it must be communicated to the players that they have this ability. This is where most discussion about gamemastering and most published RPG material fails spectacularly.How do people expect players to be engaged and excert their agency when there is nothing to engage with and no agency to exert?A campaign that players can engage with does not have a story that is already written before the players even make their characters. It doesn't tell the players what they are supposed to do. A good campaign sets up an interesting world that has content that can be interacted with, and establishes boundaries for the kinds of personalities of characters in the party so that they have similar motivations and reasons to work together."There are treasures in this land and you play a group of people who wants to find treasures.""There are many deady dangers in this land and you play a group of people who join forces to survive.""This city is full of crime and you play a group of people who join forces to claw their way to the top of the pile.""This land is plagues by bandits/monsters/invaders and you play as a group of people who have decided to no longer stand by idle and go out to do something about it."Start the players in a small semi-confined corner of the world with just one or two groups of antagonists to oppose them and a couple of colorful NPCs, and let the players observe one of the antagonist cause some trouble. Light a small fire under their asses that will be a problem if they don't do anything about it, but not become a serious threat for the time being. Then let the players loose and let them do what they want. They will be the ones who decide who the big villains will be that they mostly fight against. They will be the ones who decide which locations they want to spend more time with, and who they might want to make alliances with.Player engagement comes from players fighting against opponents that they have decided their characters despise, and fighting to gain control of places they have decided they want to take over, and help people they have decided they like. It doesn't come from telling the players they will have to fight these guys because the script says they have to, to attack the castles that the script says they have to, and to help NPCs that the script says are their friends, because otherwise there will be no game for them to play.</blockquote>

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