On DMing and "writing books"

[Ydars]

Railroading is bad when it restricts player choice but don't you all find that "window-dressing", by which I mean how you describe something, allows you a great deal of control over your players?

I have always found, DMing many groups, that merely making minor changes to the description of something can nudge the players to go a certain way without them ever being aware of it. Each person and each group are different, but they are all attracted to certain motifs in description. Once you key into this, you can guide them almost subliminally.

For example, if the PCs are in a dungeon (simplified example) and come to a passageway with two doors, I know that if I describe one door as heavily protected and reinforced, one of my groups will immediately spend time trying to open that door no-matter how I desribe the other one.

Similarly, if I describe two wooden doors but say that one is scorched and slightly charred, I can guarantee that a certain player will have his PC open that door (he is reckless) regardless of what anyone else will say.

I am not sure that all DMs are aware they are using this sort of trick, but I think most do so unconciously. By certain definitions, anything that reduces player choice is railroading, so do you think this is wrong as well?

 

[RabidBob]

Opinions or comments? Objections?

I thoroughly agree. Stories take many forms and they don't have to be dictatorial in their expression. For example, I was playing Fallout 3 the other week and found a ladder up to the top of the building I was exploring. Outside on the roof was a BBQ, two chairs, a BB gun, 3 boxes of BBs and a book. Right there - a story. No words were needed, it was just there. Maybe for RPGs the a better way of expressing it should be "the GM has a story to explore" rather than a story to tell; after all stories expressed in games are more collaborative than traditional story telling.

 

[wedgeski]

I am not sure that all DMs are aware they are using this sort of trick, but I think most do so unconciously. By certain definitions, anything that reduces player choice is railroading, so do you think this is wrong as well?

I've stated my opinion before that 'railroading' consists of a massive continuum of possibilities, only the most extreme of which are usually considered on internet message boards. However, what you observe here is one of the absolute advantages of gaming with a regular group of friends. So yes, I've done it, and no, I don't think it's wrong.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Do you think Sepulchrave, Shemeska and Piratecat don't have stories they want to explore through their games?

No, I don't.

I believe that Sepulchrave, Shemska, Piratecat and all the other great SH writers on these boards are not trying to explore a story through their games (obviously, I'd welcome any of them to say otherwise!).

I've come to see DMing as much like writing a computer game (bear with me!). My job as DM is to set up a situation, and be aware of the possible things that the PC's might want to do. If I try and explore a story, I'm heading dangerously towards forcing my characters along with me whether they want to go or not.

Going back to Sepulchrave, I don't believe he ever set out to explore the story "what happens when a Paladin converts a succubus". I believe that he was running a game, and in each session he and the players found that they were exploring that story.

(This is getting a bit rambling now, sorry!)

For me, the Story is seperate from the Game. The Story is how you remember the game - what you tell each other about what happened, or other people, or put in a Story Hour. The Game happens only in the moment, as you are rolling dice.

I mean, most D&D sessions might start out as "The Story of What Happens When A Priest Of Orcus Raises 50 Zombies And Attacks the Town", but is likely to end up as "How Kenzo the Halfling Became Known As Kenzo Zombie-Slayer" or even "Why You've Never Heard Of The Town of Winterhaven". Trying to plot out a Story in advance of the Game can be very tricky, nearly always ends badly (a la DM of the Rings) and gets in the way of the Game.

I hope some of that made sense.

 

[S'mon]

I agree with Tallarn above. The best games IMO are where the GM sets up a situation and environment, not where he plots out a detailed story arc. Premises can work - "You are retainers of the King/Archduke, who sends you on missions" - but even there you need to be very careful; I've had players get very frustrated if they found the premise confining. I think there's a reason why grognards see "There's the sandbox - what do you do?" as an ideal type of play.

 

[Jhaelen]

I am not sure that all DMs are aware they are using this sort of trick, but I think most do so unconciously. By certain definitions, anything that reduces player choice is railroading, so do you think this is wrong as well?

I don't think so. It's exactly what I'm doing when I prepare for a session. I know my players pretty well, so it's relatively easy to plot their most likely course of action.

I don't mind if they go for something unexpected (it does happen from time to time) and start improvising. If possible I'll modify prepared encounters on the fly, if not, they enter my repository of unused encounters which may or may not be used in some future session.

I'm also willing to end a session early if what they want to do is so totally unexpected that I first have to figure out how to go on and prepare some stuff. But it's really a rare thing. I think it happend about twice in a 5-year period.

I also quiz my players regularly to find out about their future plans for their characters, so I can take that into account when preparing stuff for future sessions.

Before starting a new campaign I decide on a theme and a setup for a potential plot-line. This is presented to the players. If, after making adjustments based on their comments, they decide to go for it, I prepare their first adventure and think about hooks for future adventures. The 'real' plot-line develops as we go. Unexpected changes to what I originally had in mind are what makes it fun for me.

Still, I think a little bit of railroading cannot be avoided simply because of limited prep-time. Improvising everything over extended periods of time just doesn't work well in my experience.

 

[Jack7]

I personally think a lot of people have made good points.

Many elements contribute to being a good DM, and many elements contribute to being a good writer. Sometimes those elements are the same in nature, correspond, or are corollaries of one other. Sometimes they are separate or even disparate elements.

To me the true differences are not so much in kind, in many respects the job of a DM (especially as the Devising stage of adventure/scenario creation) is an analogue of the technique(s) applied by a good author. For instance if your book wanders and meanders without purpose then it will be a fruitless exercise, and will not sell well either.

If your story and plotlines in D&D or any other game for that matter, wander about aimlessly and without purpose then the chances of undertaking a successful and coherent campaign, not to mention a truly interesting and stimulating one, are practically nil. (I am of course speaking here about on-going storylines, not disconnected series of one-shot adventures, which may be the aim and point of some groups, but as for me and mine, they are usually mere diversions, not ordinary or intentional endeavors.) So in devising campaigns, or even just adventures, the DM moist impose a useful order, beneficial to all parties. For the sake of coherence and to assure meaningful goals and objectives for the players to pursue throughout the course of the campaign(s).

The difference is he (the DM) is not sole arbiter of that order, nor is the order and story developed through such processes stagnant or calcified. I'd liked very much the allusion earlier to interactive. I would even call a game, or even more so, a good campaign, an imaginary exercise in non-technologically oriented Virtual Reality. And since it is a form of early, human-based, interactive, Virtual Reality it cannot be directed in content in the same way that a book can be. In a sense the characters (acting as an analogy to characters in a book) in a game are Virtually Alive, through the medium and agency of the player. That is the characters in a book are limited to the experiences, knowledge, capabilities, and imagination of the Author. In a game the DM or GM sets the parameters and to some sense the paradigm and order of the action and events and order of progression and play, but unlike a book, his characters are alive through the players. Each characters is "Virtually Alive" via the player and has his or her own set of experiences, capabilities, knowledge and breadth and depth of imagination. Making Role Play Games both interactive and virtual in a way that books cannot be while they are being scripted.

Anyway I found a lot of the comments very interesting, even the ones I didn't agree with, but I gotta go.
Late for an appointment.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

It is a commonly expressed sentiment both on these boards and in the community at large that "If a DM wants to 'tell a story', he should get away from the screen and go write a book", or words to that effect. On reflection, though, I think that's really both rude and disingenious. Of course, what most people mean when they say this is that the players' desires and decisions should have an impact on the story and that railroading the players through a plot "scripted" long in advance is bad. I don't think anyone would argue with that.

Actually, I'd disagree with you right here.

First, I haven't found it to be a commonly expressed sentiment at all. In fact, what I've seen expressed far more frequently is how it's one of the major ways for various GMs to "enjoy" the "work" of GMing. It's also quite frequently tied into world-building, which is often cited as another "pay off" for someone GMing.

I'd also say that I've seen more than a few people that are of the opinion that a GM _should_ be able to tell a story, and the players are along for the ride. Plenty of people advocate railroading players along, but also advise GMs to hide the fact that players are being railroaded. That way the GM can maintain "control" over the world, gets to tell the stories he's interested in, and players don't have to worry about the "tyranny of choice".

At the end of the day, GMs do what they do for a variety of reasons. Just like people play the game for a variety of reasons. Storytelling _can_ be one reason, but it's _not_ necessarily a primary reason nor does it necessarily have to be a reason for a majority of GMs.

Heck, the most common reason _I've_ come across for people being GM? Nobody else is willing to run a game. Well, it's probably matched by the number of people that are on a power trip of one sort or another.

You can't definitively say, "[THIS] describes GMing or why GMs do what they do." It can describe an _aspect_ of GMing for some folks, it can be a motivator or reason for others, but there is no single comprehensive way to define it. People can't even bloody agree on how to define _how_ they play an rpg, what an rpg "is" (how do you define an rpg) how "heavy" ("crunchy") a system should be. Plenty of people out there feel that a "rules light" system is essentially worthless and that folks would be better off just doing "free form" roleplaying.

Lord, we still have arguments going on about "role playing vs roll-playing" for @#$%@#$% sake.

And most DMs (and most groups) want a game to be more than a string of dissociated scenarios, they want to be able to look back on it and answer the question "What was that campaign about?" with something concrete. D&D is, at least the way I see it, a creative endeavour.
It's just that the appropriate analogy of the DM/players dynamic is much more like a screenwriter pitching films to a studio than a novelist giving a live reading of his work to an audience.

Sorry, nope. All the folks I've played with so far? They really didn't care about the campaign "being" about anything.

And I don't run games for them to be "about" anything either. I _can_ and have run games that way, but it's not a primary motivator.

What is?

Being cool.

*shrug*

I admit it. Vilify me, beat your chest about how I'm ruining the hobby, whatever. There it is. I'm more interested in folks being able to do "cool" stuff with their character.

Now, sometimes that "cool" thing is a story thing. Sometimes it's a righteous smackdown that they're responsible for issuing. It varies.

In the interest of "full disclosure"? There's a poll I responded to just today that asked which was more important, Story or Combat? What did I pick? Story.

Is that at odds with what I've just written? I don't think so.

If I have to pick for something to focus on, it's going to be "a story", as opposed to "Story". There's more to rpgs than simply killing things and taking their stuff. But that doesn't mean that you can't have combat happening in the story as you go along.

But "capital S story"? Bore me to @#$%#$% tears. You know all those George Martin books and Wheel of Time books that people love? I consider them to be a blight. I barely managed to make it through two of the Wheel of Time books and I haven't even bothered to pick up the Martin ones. People love 'em, that's great. I personally plan on _never_ reading them, or anything else like 'em.

If I have to pick between The Killer (John Woo movie) and Lord of the Rings? The Killer wins. The Matrix and Equilibrium (staring Christian Bale)? Equilibrium.

Why?

All of 'em are good movies. Yeah, I've actually seen LotR more than once.

But the movies I said I'd pick? I'd pick 'em because they had more "cool" stuff going on in 'em. "Cool" doesn't have to mean "combat" or "ass-kicking". The Matrix is better than Equilibrium on a number of fronts; I personally found the story of Equilibrium to be "cooler" than The Matrix. It was more engaging. It's awfully hard to be the lobby scene in The Matrix, although Equilibrium does have a number of "Holy crap! moments as well."

I'll take Alias or The Shield over Law & Order. NYPD Blue was much more enjoyable to me than CSI has ever been, despite CSI being a much slicker show.

Me? I think about "what would be cool for this game?" It's going to vary depending on the system that's being used, the setting of the game, and what the players want to do. If I can't think of something "cool" that overlaps with all of 'em?

I won't run a game.

It doesn't mean I don't have some sort of idea for stories. And I'm confident in my ability to have combat feature (or not) in a game I run. I need to have both of these things in order to even consider running a game in the first place. But if I can't get that "cool" thing that bridges stories, combat, and player expectations? No game.

 

[Aeolius]

To quote Steve Martin:
"I don't need you. I can do this act alone. I often do."

When PCs leave the town to explore the dungeon, the inhabitants of the town do not freeze in place like a movie on "Pause". The town continues; NPCs interact with one another, events continue to unfold. Likewise, when the PCs return to the town, events in the dungeon progress and evolve.

A DM can write as many "Chapters" as they wish, in such a manner. "What happens in the dungeon when the party leaves?" "What do the important NPCs in the town do, as they await the party's return?"

When I create a campaign, I like to plot out a rough timeline. What would happen, if the antagonists ran amuck, unchecked by the forces of good? I devise the BBEG, her close followers, the henchmen of the followers, and the underlings of the henchmen. They might not all have stats, but they all have motivations. What would happen in the world, if the villains had no one to stop them?

Enter the Player Characters. Rewind the timeline to the appropriate point. Let them loose and bask in the serendipitous events that you had no way of expecting. Adjust the schemes and dreams of your NPCs accordingly. Repeat.

 

[pawsplay]

It is a commonly expressed sentiment both on these boards and in the community at large that "If a DM wants to 'tell a story', he should get away from the screen and go write a book", or words to that effect. On reflection, though, I think that's really both rude and disingenious.

On the other hand, I feel it's merely an accurate summation. RPGs don't tell a story. They generate a series of events, about which a story can be told. But certainly there is nothing like a plot to an RPG.