Player-driven campaigns and developing strong stories

[bloodtide]

In contrast to "only you can stop the villain and if you don't try there would be no game", what available methods do we have to attract PCs to make someone else's problem their own even though the campaign does not require them to?

There might not be good way? But you don't really want to do this. To say "here is a thing, you must do it to play the game" is the wrong way to go.

If you have an existing group of players and they are asking to prepare and run a new campaign for them, then you can ask them to decide on the pitch and come back to them a few weeks later. But of you want to pitch a campaign and go looking for players, the game needs to be ready to start within the week at the latest.

You can take as long as you need. Why do you feel there is a rush of just one week?

If not hooks to reel them in, there probably need to be at least some ropes within grasp that the players can pull on to see where they go. At the very start of the campaign it's often best to have the characters in a situation with very limited options and a immediately pressing problem that must be addressed. That gives them some time to get familiar with the environment and a feel for who their characters actually are. But while that helps to get things going, it still only pushes out the moment where the PCs will have to be thrown into the water to swim or sink.

For new players, new players to my group or players that "don't know what they want to do" I will start with a forced plot. the tavern explodes, the PCs fall into a 20 feet crater and some dragonborn are like "quick finish them off before they fulfill the prophecy!" Or Aunt Voras shows up with a Ring of Daily Wishes, and asks the PCs to hide it, but not use it.....want to GUESS what happens EVERY time I do this plot?

Many game concepts have PCs take on jobs or other tasks for rewards, but it always feels to me that these rarely ever sound actually exciting. They are stuff you accept to do because you understand the game needs you to do so. Again, in the introduction to a campaign, that's not a bad thing once or twice. But if the players/PCs are supposed to become proactive at some point, the world needs to have things that actively sound attractive and exciting. Things that make the players want to drop the safe and predictable options and instead take avoidable risks.

A DMs wold building is a whole other topic. A lot of DMs like simple, classic , low fantasy, low magic, low adventure type worlds. So there might be a lot of "just like Old Tyme Earth" plots and stories, but there won't be much like "an amazing fantasy adventure" plots and stories. This is the typical disconnect that is seen between many DMs and players: The DM wants a game like the movies Excaliber or Brave heart, the players want a game like Big Trouble in Little China or Harry Potter.

I think that's kind of the goal I am after. Players having every option to just walk away from a situation and keep their PCs safe, but still rather wanting to do that thing that might cost them dearly. Which is why I feel it is very important that the players pick for themselves what they want to get invested in. If it is part of the premise of the campaign that the PCs will be heroes for a specific cause, then the players know that walking away is not actually a real option that they could go with and continue the campiagn.

Well, player investment works. Give the players real things in the game to earn. Ones I have used:

*Have the PCs be super powerful creatures, like dragons or Demon lords...EXCEPT...they were defeated in battle and now are shadows of themselves. So, they make 1st level characters, but have some powers or such. What they have to do is find the three/six/ten/whatever 'pieces' of themselves to make them whole.

*The PCs start as undead, like ghosts, with no memory of how they died, but lots of clues that they were a powerful group that ruled a empire or such.

*Dark Matter(the TV show): The PCs wake up on a Spelljammer with no memories of who they are....but there are plots around them. A fun twist here is have the players each make a character, then randomly switch them. Even more fun is the DM keeps all the sheets until the players figure out who and what their character is.

*The Lost Kingdom: The PCs are the last royalty or such of a kingdom that was over run, destroyed, or such....and they have to rebuild it. A real fun twist here is the PCs are out of time...like they were in timeless stasis for 100 years or more...

*In Time- the PCs are all ancient warforged or such awakened in the modern day...but with 'low batteries'. They need to absorb magic to live, something like 1000 gp equals 24 hours of life or such. This massive time resource management really keeps a game moving.

How to get them invested is the big puzzle to solve.

Power works. Give the players a ton of in game power that they can only keep if they invest in the game play or 'lost' power that they have to win back.

I add tons of stuff to a game, like items and spells and secret devises. The sort of things the players need to find. Some is just simple stuff, some is game breaking and some is beyond amazing. Dor's hammer makes a clone of it's welder...just watch the players fall in love with having two characters. All sorts of divination spells that can give the caster REAL information,,lots of players LOVE these: watch a wizard player do anything to get a copy of Rays Replay of the Past (turn back time and see what happen in a place). The type of spell that gives a player a lot of in game power beyond just a pew pew combat spell.

 

[pemerton]

It technically can be, but as a broad observation, committees are not terribly great at making choices. "Design by committee," has a negative connotation due to this pretty common experience.

There are games designed for such approaches, and games that are not. One reason to not use such an approach is that you aren't otherwise using the right tool for the job.

It can be done by committee, of course. It’s simply harder. And the players have to commit to exploring stories that the other characters will have reason to explore even when their personal character may not be the focus.

I just think @Celebrim is right to call out that, in practice, a lot of groups can’t maintain that level of cohesion.

I'm not really sure how these posts are meant to relate to the OP.

I know that it's possible to play RPGs in the way the OP speaks about, because I do it regularly. And it doesn't really require the GM to be the sort of "unifying force" that has been posited. Eg in my Prince Valiant game, the players provided the "unifying force" by establishing a holy military order and leading it east to fight a crusade. In the most recent Burning Wheel session that I played, the session focused mostly on robbing the office of a harbour official, because one of the players has Beliefs and Instincts about trying to find and take treasure.

If you have players who don't want to play this way, then you won't play this way. If you want to play a RPG system that is not well-suited to playing this way, then you probably won't play this way either (although in my experience it's not impossible - eg I've played this way using AD&D as the RPG system). But presumably the OP does want to play this way, and is interested in systems that facilitate this sort of play. Of which there are many!

 

[Celebrim]

Honestly, we just have radically different ideas as to what the subject matter of 'player driven' is.

Yes, and you've committed a subtle but important fallacy.

You are confusing "player driven" with "character driven". The two things are not the same thing. I agree that you can have a campaign that is driven by the personalities of the characters and that the fundamental issue that is always being tested is the personality of the characters and personality conflicts by the characters. But the fact that your plot is "character driven" doesn't mean that your game is necessarily player driven or that character driven stories are the only way to have player driven games.

The fundamental problem with "character driven" play is that there is no guarantee at all that that is the desire and primary aesthetics of play of the players. It's not necessarily the case that the players want to see play that is primarily about their characters beliefs, bonds, and personality. They may have no interest at all in testing whether "our party, one that is potentially a bit of a powder keg, will they, can they, pull together?" And if I the GM am deciding that that is what the game is about, well we'd have character driven stories in a GM driven game.

Players and characters aren't the same thing. We often confuse those terms and say things like, "I killed all my players last night.", but as the example shows, it's important to keep that distinction.

For how long? Will the one seeking vengeance eventually go to far? Will the one who just wants cold hard cash be at odds with the one who always seeks justice? Is the kindly one really cut out for this kind of work? And what about the authorities? Are they supportive, corrupt? Do they think of bounty hunters as worthless scum they will happily rid themselves of at some point? Is that a universally held belief, or do they have 'friends on the force'? Note that I, and/or the players, can easily mine many existing stories for these kinds of elements.

Certainly you can mine all sorts of stories out of these sorts of conflicts, but the thing is, if this is the sort of story the players want to have they don't really need all that much support from me. Players can choose to lean into these sorts of conflicts on their own initiative because they are interested in it. They don't really need rules or a system. Issues like the above are potential subtext of even the most traditional sorts of games. I've seen players that want to lean into that sort of play and so they do, and that's great. One of the best things as a GM is being able to just lean back and watch your players entertain you with great intra-party RP.

But if that's what players want, they don't need to be forced to do it.

Note that the vast majority of what comes next will be, at least, inspired by player input. I'd ask "OK, did any of you spot an interesting fugitive you want to go after?" Some player(s) will respond with some ideas for people to chase down. Maybe the answer is "lets go for the guy with the biggest reward!" OK, there's probably a REASON the reward is large, he's not likely to be an easy mark! I can also kind of wing it, the game's just starting, maybe if the players are a bit slow on the immediate uptake I just frame a scene where they run into a face they've seen before, on a wanted poster! Maybe one of the players remarks "yeah, that guy is wanted for injuring a City Watchman!" Maybe there's a story here, it will likely come out. Perhaps its not all back-and-white, he was stealing bread to feed his kids, whatever. Or maybe he's just a nasty customer and its a straight up fight. Dice might help to determine which it is, tossed for various checks as the scene plays out, throwing up complications.

I'm familiar with the theory and the style. My problem with it both as a player and a GM is that it isn't the experience I'm going after, even though as a player I am the sort of guy willing to lean into intra-party RP and conflict if I have other players willing to lean that way and skilled enough to do it. The problem I have with that "Nar" "Indy" style is that in the way it usually describes its processes of play is that the resulting play doesn't resemble being participants within a novel or a movie, but instead resembles the process of being a creative team tasked with creating a screenplay collaboratively. And that's a very different experience, and it's not one I particularly enjoy as either a player or a GM nor is it an experience that I think my current players are apt to enjoy. The aesthetics of play that are enjoyed by my table just aren't met through those processes of play.

But you don't have to run games that way for them to be either player driven or character driven or to run stories where you don't know where the story is going to go or for the GM to be surprised by where it goes.

 

[S'mon]

I disagree. I don't think you are expressing yourself particularly well.

I disagree. I think I'm expressing myself quite well.

 

[Celebrim]

I disagree. I think I'm expressing myself quite well.

Well, one of us is failing. If it helps to think of it as me, feel free. But I don't in the slightest understand what you mean by, "It's the thinking in terms of literary creation pre-game that is harmful, I think." or why you think that. And, you must have thought it obvious, because you didn't elaborate.

 

[Andvari]

I don't think you should set up scenes in your adventures. I prefer thinking of adventure locations or events in terms of scenarios. The party might get a mission to eliminate the boss of a dungeon, so assuming they survive, then sure, they will probably end up confronting the boss. But I don't write a script for how they tackle the dungeon, how meeting the boss will go or what will happen after. What happens is the result of PC actions, dice, and how the world responds to those things.

For example, in last "boss" fight my current players had, the enemies managed to escape. I knew they would attempt to escape when low on HP if it seemed like a viable option, but I had no idea whether they would succeed. Knowing where they would be headed, I am now making changes to that location accordingly.

 

[chaochou]

I think the platonic ideal of a great RPG campaign is one that takes place on a grand stage and revolves around the PCs struggling in an ongoing conflict against groups of NPCs, while also having the players ideas, plans, and decisions determining what path the story will ultimately take.

How can we get there?

I’ve had such games simply by playing Apocalypse World by the book. I’ve had such games playing Burning Wheel as written.

‘Getting there‘ involves two things - doing what those games say, instead of deciding they can’t actually mean what they say and substituting in what you do when D&D is silent on the matter.

And trusting the players to develop characters which have something interesting and worthwhile to say.

Neither of these things are necessarily easy. New groups and new players will find them much easier. But they are perfectly achievable provided a group is open and willing to new ideas, with participants who want to grow and learn.

There are some loud extremists who have normalised totally GM-driven play to the extent that they deny any alternative exists. But they’re easy to spot, and so easy to avoid both to play with and as advisors.

 

[pemerton]

I’ve had such games simply by playing Apocalypse World by the book. I’ve had such games playing Burning Wheel as written.

<snip>

There are some loud extremists who have normalised totally GM-driven play to the extent that they deny any alternative exists. But they’re easy to spot, and so easy to avoid both to play with and as advisors.

This.

There is a tone in this thread as if getting what the OP wants is a mystery, or a challenge. But it's pretty straightforward if you just do what those games say in their rulebooks.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not really sure how these posts are meant to relate to the OP.

I wasn’t referencing the OP, I merely wanted to post that I found the post attacking Celebrim’s point over the top.

My ancillary point is that group size is an unrecognized variable in these discussions of play style; procedures and methods that produce player-driven coherent games with 3 PCs are often unworkable with 6. Player-driven games need a certain amount of shared direction and assumption to work, and that becomes more and more difficult to sustain as the number of player and character relationships at the table increase.

 

[chaochou]

I wasn’t referencing the OP, I merely wanted to post that I found the post attacking Celebrim’s point over the top.

My ancillary point is that group size is an unrecognized variable in these discussions of play style; procedures and methods that produce player-driven coherent games with 3 PCs are often unworkable with 6. Player-driven games need a certain amount of shared direction and assumption to work, and that becomes more and more difficult to sustain as the number of player and character relationships at the table increase.

There are posters who are hugely overstating the difficulty of achieving the goals of the OP. None of the scaremongering in this thread show any basis of being rooted in actual play. They just illustrate prejudice being used to fuel nonsense speculation.

So, perhaps you can expand on your actual experiences when player count changed the character of a player-driven game. I’ve managed with five players quite happily. What happened in your game with 6? And why?