new preview DMG2

[Mallus]

You might be getting closer to the mark here.

For future reference, I'll try to remember that some people don't think 'storytelling' and 'story-writing' are completely interchangeable terms (the way I do, in this context).

If a character takes action A because the group decides that it makes for a better story than action B or C we have active collaborative storytelling driving the action of the game. Do you see the difference?

Yeah... that's completely not what I got from the phrase 'collaborative storytelling'. I didn't think it implied group usurpation of an individual player's action choice.

That said, I have watched my group essentially do just that: have out-of-character discussions about their PC's next action with the focus on what would lead to the most amusing consequences. Usually this involves someone voicing a really counterproductive (read: insane) idea and the rest of group going 'No that's perfect, that's so X'.

 

[Umbran]

Do you see the difference?

Yes, I see the difference. What I fail to see is how that difference supports your opening stance. Unless you intend to say that you cannot imagine how anybody could use such techniques to have fun in their games?

Me, I've never been a big fan of psionics. I don't feel it is a good fit with the other elements of the game. But I don't go around asking, "What has that got to do with D&D?" Instead, I take it that some folks actually like it and find it useful, even if I do not. I figure the Game is big enough for both of us.

Maybe you should try that.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Are you trying to argue that you only roleplay if you make the absolute most optimal choice every single time? That you play out your character's best interests regardless of any other consideration?

Not in any way shape or form. I am saying that a character will make choices that seem to be the best for him/her at the time. This does not mean the most tactically sound option all the time. If a character has a younger family member in danger then planning a daring rescue against terrible odds might not be tactically the best option for the character's continued safety but the character may do it anyway because he/she believes that it is the right thing to do. That's an example of a character driven motivation.

If that's true, than any character which has a weakness is no longer role-playing by your definition. The reason I'm getting this is from this quote..

Well it isn't true. I don't know how you got to that conclusion from that quote.

If a player chooses to make a character that drinks too much, is that still role-playing? What if he only decides to drink too much this session, maybe because he's celebrating. He's not choosing to further his goals - he's actively harming himself.

If the PC decides to get drunk because the character thinks that it would be a good idea, then why not?

Never mind the rather large number of games out there which rely on players taking interesting, but challenging choices in order to gain later benefits - Spirit of the Century and Sufficiently Advanced both do this. You can succeed right now, but it will cost you later, or you can take some sort of penalty now to have a really great success later. Is that still role playing in your view?

Nope. Making a choice that is not relevant to the character in any way isn't a roleplaying decision. Having a character act in a given fashion because some game mechanic law of the universe says that they WILL have a time to shine and therefore MUST suck elsewhere is a storytelling decision made by the player.

Heck, I would argue that almost every module ever written features the players "playing out a pre-defined "scene"" If you look at the set up of just about every encounter in every module ever written, the events of the scene are pretty easy to assume. If the event states, "The orcs, upon seeing the PC's, attack" is the group still role-playing? After all, the scene was pre-scripted

A module can suggest all kinds of likely outcomes. If a DM feels bound to only use those suggested outcomes then game failure can result.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Yes, I see the difference. What I fail to see is how that difference supports your opening stance. Unless you intend to say that you cannot imagine how anybody could use such techniques to have fun in their games?

Me, I've never been a big fan of psionics. I don't feel it is a good fit with the other elements of the game. But I don't go around asking, "What has that got to do with D&D?" Instead, I take it that some folks actually like it and find it useful, even if I do not. I figure the Game is big enough for both of us.

Maybe you should try that.

I never said that storytelling was bad/wrong, merely that it and roleplaying are different animals and D&D is marketed as a roleplaying game. When D&D the storytelling adventure game is released I will see such a preview in a different light.

 

[pedr]

It is of course worth noting that parts of the DMG2 (and, I'd wager, this chapter) are written by Robin Laws who is unashamedly about producing products which focus on the narrative coherence of rpg sessions/adventures/play. From my rough understanding, HeroQuest 2, which he wrote/was lead designer on has mechanics which explicitly act to emulate the ebbs and flows of tension and drama in a story.

In other words, while there's clearly a well-understood continuum from 'role-play heavy' to 'hack-n-slash tactical game' in RPGs, perhaps the one we're discussing here is the 'story-telling' to 'improv' spectrum. At the 'improv' end, the characters are faced with situations which they explore through play, as the player predicts the character would react. At the 'story-telling' end, the players take on the role of characters in a story, sometimes modifying their actions to reflect the nature of the story being told.

D&D has tended to be at the improv end, of course, but there's no reason that it can't support or encourage aspects of story-telling. No-one's going to play D&D expecting something like 'Primetime Adventures' (where the role of the players is explicitly to make use of their characters to help the group 'create' an episode of the tv show they've invented) - but recognising that the activities of the players are part of a fantasy story and highlighting that at times - through flashbacks, or cut-scenes giving information to the players which the characters don't know, to heighten the players' anticipation of scenes to come, or so on - can help the players to inhabit the story as it is being written.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I never said that storytelling was bad/wrong, merely that it and roleplaying are different animals and D&D is marketed as a roleplaying game. When D&D the storytelling adventure game is released I will see such a preview in a different light.

my group does both...we role-play and tell stories...sometiems we even do teh dread roll play...

see like I said in the orginal post I tried sevral of these idea's before...and guess what it doesn't take away from our role-playing one bit.

I have been playing around with what I call the NCIS cut. Every adventure starts with a 10 second flash... when we hit that moment we have another...the idea is a predetermained moment that we build towards...

In DCU west end games (super hero game) we had played with time paceing alot. I had a game start at 1 min till now...then flash back to 3 week till now. Half way through the session we flashed to now...then back to 19 hours till now...

[sblock]
2 sessions earlier a PC killed an enemy (big critical hit...by mistake). we had just lost a PC (Both characters female) the 1 min from now was there base picking up an intruder in the 'hall of hero's' then flash to the story were another PCs girlfriend had gone nuts and became a true psyco killer...half way through game we flash to the intruder who is a female spector (Undead servant of god's vengence) who is looking at a statue and saying she owed her new job to the team...since she would be alive without them... then we continued the story of hunting for the girlfriend/nut when she killed the parrents of another charchter...so they were out for blood...leaving who is the new spector at 2 major possbilities (Dead hero from last week, or dead girfriend about to be killed...)

of cource it was the enemy killed by mistake 2 games earlier...but it was a fun game of dropping clues...
[/sblock]

 

[avin]

Personally, I'm on the fence about this personally, but I once again, love the fact that D&D is actually talking/giving advice for those people that actually enjoy this.

As you can see in my sign, I'm running some games. The guys who don't roleplay properly and are heavy metagamers won't read this chapter, because they're not interested.

The people who like roleplaying more than rolling dice (I like less dice rolling and more rolepkaying) will read but they already know something about it...

Anyway, I have this feeling that this chapter is a reaction to 4E (my game of choice at this moment) image of more roll dice than proper roleplay.

Scott Rouse posted something about this months ago in a blog.

Dragon article defending 4E's roleplay's incentive by removing skills (lol).

DMG2 investing in teaching roleplay.

It's like 4E excellent combat tools is attracting more dice rollers than "real" roleplayers and Wotc is trying to revert this.

Too bad we can't talk about this without 3E and 4E fans jump to defend their "true editions of D&D"...

 

[ExploderWizard]

Too bad we can't talk about this without 3E and 4E fans jump to defend their "true editions of D&D"...

There can be only one TRUE edition- the one your group enjoys the most for the present time.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I never said that storytelling was bad/wrong, merely that it and roleplaying are different animals and D&D is marketed as a roleplaying game. When D&D the storytelling adventure game is released I will see such a preview in a different light.

I don't think that it is helpful to create a divide between "storytelling" and "roleplaying" in this way. It makes sense to use the terms to distinguish certain aspects, but I do not think they are mutually exclusive or at odds with each other.

The "Storytelling" stuff comes from people playing roleplaying games like D&D. A game that calls itself a roleplaying game is well justified in having rules or DM suggestions on how to "storytell".

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Overall, I am looking forward to the DMG 2. My only issue is that it might not add actually much "useful" things to someone that is already running games for quite some time now. But ... I didn't care for random tables either, and I can at least see myself reading this stuff, and being occassionally pleasently surprised by an interesting approaches or suggestions.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I don't think that it is helpful to create a divide between "storytelling" and "roleplaying" in this way. It makes sense to use the terms to distinguish certain aspects, but I do not think they are mutually exclusive or at odds with each other.

The "Storytelling" stuff comes from people playing roleplaying games like D&D. A game that calls itself a roleplaying game is well justified in having rules or DM suggestions on how to "storytell".

I think that is helpful to divide storytelling and roleplaying advice. While they can both be utilized in a tabletop game they are sort of at odds with one another. One cannot simultaneously stoytell and roleplay and vice versa.