Player-driven campaigns and developing strong stories

[Composer99]

@TwoSix No, I don't think any of the posts critical of @Celebrim's positions are over the top.

Celebrim comes across as trying to assert their personal beliefs - not even necessarily personal gameplay experiences! - as something approaching settled fact. (That may not be what they intend, but that's how it comes across.)

This runs up against other posters who are, quite literally, explaining how games they've actually played bely Celebrim's claims.

It's not a hard question to answer whose accounts come across as more credible.

 

[TwoSix]

@TwoSix No, I don't think any of the posts critical of @Celebrim's positions are over the top.

Celebrim comes across as trying to assert their personal beliefs - not even necessarily personal gameplay experiences! - as something approaching settled fact. (That may not be what they intend, but that's how it comes across.)

This runs up against other posters who are, quite literally, explaining how games they've actually played bely Celebrim's claims.

It's not a hard question to answer whose accounts come across as more credible.

Man, don't put me in the position of trying to be a Celebrim defender. I don't agree with most of their positions, and I'm perfectly aware that they believe in trad-style play supremacy.

But we need to be principled enough to call out hyperbole in posters we otherwise agree with. Celebrim is engaging with your points even when they don't agree with you. And I didn't see anything in their posts that seemed like straight railroading like they were being accused of.

 

[TwoSix]

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?

All I'm saying is that trying to find 5-6 players who all make characters that have mutually agreeable goals is tough. And when you have 6 characters, they need to be working on something that's mutually satisfying. It's not too bad to pursue one character's individual goals and find a reason for 2 other players to tag along. It's a lot harder to find reason for 5 other tag alongs. You can do it if they're a friend group or a crew or something like that, but that was the point I made of the characters need to be built to have mutually reinforcing stories.

 

[chaochou]

All I'm saying is that trying to find 5-6 players who all make characters that have mutually agreeable goals is tough. And when you have 6 characters, they need to be working on something that's mutually satisfying. It's not too bad to pursue one character's individual goals and find a reason for 2 other players to tag along. It's a lot harder to find reason for 5 other tag alongs. You can do it if they're a friend group or a crew or something like that, but that was the point I made of the characters need to be built to have mutually reinforcing stories.

If you’d played the two games I’d mentioned you’d know that characters in them don’t need mutually agreeable goals, and so wouldn’t posit it as a problem. Such is the benefit of actual play experience over hypothesising.

 

[Umbran]

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

They were meant to provide one answer (there are several) to your question. If the answer doesn't relate to the OP, that may be because your question doesn't relate as much to the OP as you may at first think.

To wit: Design by committee may get you a "player driven" campaign, but it does little to ensure "strong stories". Committees are often very bad at unifying vision.

 

[John Dallman]

If you’d played the two games I’d mentioned you’d know that characters in them don’t need mutually agreeable goals, and so wouldn’t posit it as a problem.

If the characters have thoroughly contradictory goals, then those may dominate play.

However, the idea that characters have fixed goals, which don't change, isn't the way that people behave in reality, or good fiction. People change over time, including their goals and opinions. They align themselves to new causes, react to changing circumstances. and learn new ways to behave. Indeed, having that happen to my characters is, for me, one of the most satisfying parts of role-playing.

 

[chaochou]

However, the idea that characters have fixed goals, which don't change, isn't the way that people behave in reality, or good fiction. People change over time, including their goals and opinions.

Funnily enough, that's exactly what happens in Burning Wheel and Apocalypse World - the characters change. You have played both games, of course... So what was your point?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The specifics depend very much on how you play.

Well I remember a game I ran where the players were pretty much 'handling things' but then the differences between the characters caused the party to make a horrible mistake and they were all destroyed. The paladin got rescued later and became a tragic NPC who's issues almost did in my first 4e group's party. The players orchestrated it all though in both games, except for the reappearance of the paladin, I threw in that twist as a consequence of some phase spiders kicking the party's asses. Mostly it felt less out of control than most games though. An amazing variety can arise.

 

[Yora]

All I'm saying is that trying to find 5-6 players who all make characters that have mutually agreeable goals is tough. And when you have 6 characters, they need to be working on something that's mutually satisfying. It's not too bad to pursue one character's individual goals and find a reason for 2 other players to tag along. It's a lot harder to find reason for 5 other tag alongs. You can do it if they're a friend group or a crew or something like that, but that was the point I made of the characters need to be built to have mutually reinforcing stories.

The important part is to have the players first agree on general goals for the party and then create characters accordingly. That's the one thing where I interfere with players in their freedom to make whatever character they want.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.


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


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?


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.


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.


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.

It's funny because there's a 4e background/theme/PP for basically each of those. 3 are actually entire races (warforged, revenant, and deva). There are some other fun ones too. It's a strength of that system. Not that other editions/systems won't let you do it, 4e just really pushes it.