Player-driven campaigns and developing strong stories

[pemerton]

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.

I think my preferred number is two or three players. I've had four and five. In my experience of those larger groups, sometimes one or even two players are somewhat "hangers on" rather than driving the action themselves.

Reflecting on it, I think part of what makes three players good is that you can set up a situation which involves two players' characters, and then cut from that to the action involving the third. But the two trajectories are not quite parallel because of the different number of PC's involved - there's a type of instability/invitation to dynamism.

It'd be good to hear your thoughts on working happily with five players.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Procedures of play is what isn't written down in the rules. It's things that vary from whether or not you count the roll if the dice falls off the table, to whether or not the DM draws maps, to whether or not PC's write out 4 page backstories, to whether you RP in 1st person or 3rd person, to what filters does the group apply to determine what a valid proposition is and how skill rolls are called at the table. It's a thing very different than the rules and which most tables are not even consciously aware of. Most games don't actually change play by changing the rules, but by changing how people think about playing.

But it is EXACTLY what is written down in Dungeon World! First it tells you all about what sort of people the PCs are assumed to be, and what kinds of elements go into a game. Next it explains directly that a game of Dungeon World is a conversation between the participants, both players and GM. So, now we know who the participants are, what activity they are engaged in, and what sort of story the game is designed to produce (fantastic heroes exploring a magical world and doing heroic stuff). We also learn that the participants make 'moves', though we don't know what these are quite yet, but that is covered next (we're at page 18 now, though a number of the these pages are tables of contents, a basic intro to RPGs, etc.). At this point we learn about the basic outcomes of moves (you do it, there are complications, the GM makes a move and you get XP).

Starting on page 159 there is a very precise description of exactly how the GM operates, what he's trying to accomplish, how to do it, and techniques you can and should use during play. This is all QUITE precise and exactly describes the process of play of the entire game from start to finish! Nothing, in Dungeon World, is left to chance in terms of the structure of the game, its play process, goals, etc. It is as completely described as any board game! Obviously being a TTRPG its impossible for the rules to be a 'closed system' that provides an answer for every question that can arise in play, but the game IS functionally complete. There is no "what is not written down in the rules" as you put it.

 

[payn]

I had a thought that somehow never occured to me, as it goes against the orthodox puritanian model of a true sandbox, but what if the PCs don't start out as new nobodies with no reputation and no involvement in anything?
There could easily be people out looking for them and planning to hand out some pain or other major nuisance when they find them?
Frequently this shows up as someone more powerful and lots of goons forcing the PCs to go on an adventure doing a specific thing, if they want to or not. Which of course is really not player-driven. But even when you go with the old (and perhaps tired) of "You own this dangerous guy a lot of money", it does not need to be that the players do a specific task to get the debt cleared, but just deliver the money by whichever means they can think of.
If the PCs primary goal is to stay alive and keep their possessions, heading away from all the action is a sensible approach. But when trouble is already coming for you and will keep looking for you, then that changes the whole situation comppetely. Various places now become much more dangerous for the PCs specifically even if they are not particularly so for other people, and the PCs already have good reasons to look for opportunities to team up with the enemies of their enemies.

If you have players that are very reactive, as opposed to proactive, this could likely work out well. I know many players that prefer the action come to them then to go looking for it. I think the key element here is offering them options. For example, the debt needs to be paid but they can figure out how to do that. Seems like a good approach.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The two aren't separatable. There isn't this either/or distinction you are trying to make. Imagine Star Wars as a campaign. Do you think it matter's if Luke's player knows that Darth Vader is his father from the beginning? Which do you think is more exciting from the player's perspective, setting up all his own story beats or discovering them as he explores the setting? I think it's better if the player just signals his orphan status as an opportunity to explore fairy tale themes, and then let's the GM come up with his past generally with the consent of the player - "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you want me to mess with you?", sort of thing. And I really hope that the player said 10 out 10, because making Leia a secret sister is so Greek Tragedy, "Yikes!".

I think your answers are MUCH too limited here and you are too sure of what you think you know. Taking this 'Luke situation' as an example: I would expect in narrative play that indeed the player would invent the relationship between Darth Vader and himself, but probably only on the spot when the two come into direct conflict. It would PROBABLY not be something that was decided long in advance. Now, it could also be thrown out there by a GM as part of some sort of consequence/twist/devil's bargain kind of mechanism, though in that case maybe not as an absolutely established fact, maybe more as a possibility. In fact such 'hints' might have been dropped earlier. Maybe the player dropped some hints, and the GM finally took up the offer and made it so!

And from long first-hand experience, I can tell you that this sort of thing is NOT unexciting simply because the player reached out and grasped the story and made something of it. There's, first of all, a deep sense of RIGHTNESS when you do this thing and it fits. You KNOW you pulled off a really cool thematic moment! Same if you are the GM and it came from you. Either way good thematic narrative play sings. There isn't some higher form that is missing simply because its not all dropped on the players by the GM. Quite the contrary IMHO.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

'Fallacy', ROFL! Who role plays the characters? Who constructs their personalities and decides how they react to various situations, and probably (in my play at least) determines what sorts of situations those are? The PLAYERS. Characters aren't 'driving' anything, they're played by the players! This entire notion is strange and incomprehensible to me!

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.

Maybe the players have no interest in the 'GM driven game' either! Maybe they have no interest in picking from a menu of which bounties to hunt, etc. Maybe the player wants to explore just exactly what it means to decide that his character is angry enough to kill, or if he will betray his friends to get what he wants.

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.

Players do the playing, not characters. The wants and desires of the characters, their personalities, etc. are FICTION, part of the state of the world that the players shape and act within. Providing both constraints and material with which to act.

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.

I disagree. I mean, not with all of what you have said here, but with some of it. I may also agree with another part. That is, I don't think the players DO need that much from the GM, except to be a sort of organizing influence in terms of pace, setting, and the behavior of NPCs. However, they DO need, or at least can very much profit from, a good set of rules which supports what they're doing. Again, look at the rules for Dungeon World, which offer a very comprehensive set of elements, organized in a sort of 'onion-like' way (Vince Baker observed this about AW, not me). At the core is "RPG as conversation" and then there are the agenda, principles, and specifics of character, and finally the moves and other mechanics. You can strip away elements even, but this is a very thoroughly designed and explicated rules structure which, if played with integrity (IE as instructed) will produce dramatic, thematic, narrative role play. Sure, you CAN do without it, but WHY? It is QUITE useful! Finally, I agree it is great to see, and participate in. I'm not sure I'd use the term 'lean back', because IME the GM has a fairly active part to play.

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

Nobody can or wants to FORCE anyone to do anything. Do you FORCE players to do stuff in your games? Of course not, they come to the table and play, of their own free will. You CAN however kill the sort of play I'm talking about! Heck, its quite easy, as most players are not really aware of what different sorts of games are like, unless they have some experience. If I take 5 naive players and we play trad D&D through some pre-written module, how would they know there's anything else? I mean, that's fine, but if I show them a strongly narrative game, they're equally going to build their understanding on that basis and be just as likely to be entertained that way.

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.

I'm not so sure about this. I mean, its not up to me to tell you what your preferences are, but IME narrative play is not THAT different from trad play. Most of what you are doing is describing what your character does, and seeing what happens. At various junctures there are likely to be 'story determining' bits where the players interject some direction into play. Exactly what those are and how they happen varies a lot from game to game. In Dungeon World the GM is bound to ask questions, and use the answers, and there are certain mechanics which let the players ask specific questions that MUST be answered by the GM, which often binds the participants to some new fiction. In Blades in the Dark there's a whole set of game 'phases' where different activities happen. During a score the players mostly just RP in character. The GM may ask questions, but generally the thematics and whatnot are already decided for that session. Those decisions are most likely to happen in 'down time' or 'info gathering' phases of the game where the players decide what sort of score they are doing, and in the process likely propose some fiction (IE "we are pretty sure that the Billhooks are moving some contraband tonight, maybe we can rob them.") It never, IME, feels like 'creating a screenplay'. Again, I'm not in charge of what you decide to like, but your descriptions don't match well with my experiences.

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.

Well, this isn't the sort of statement that, IMHO, leads to any conclusion about anything. Sure, ANY sort of play MIGHT possibly arise out of almost any RPG. That's a pretty banal statement if you ask me. I mean, if I take what you tell me at face value, then all the discussion, as well as all my experience and expertise in different types of play is basically just nuthin about nuthin. lol. Color me unconvinced.

 

[Celebrim]

But it is EXACTLY what is written down in Dungeon World!

Oh, I agree. One of the things that came out of the Forge era is a realization that the processes of play weren't well encoded, described and transmitted to the players. A lot of the games that came out of the discussion do a very good job of not only telling you the rules, but also telling you how they want the game to be played.

This is both good and bad.

However, it doesn't overturn the idea that how you think about the game is more important than the rules. It just means that the game also tells you how its designer expects the participants to think about the game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Yes, but, he does come across as being extremely opinionated and extraordinarily sure that there are certain facts and truths about RPG play, players, etc. which I am able to confidently state are directly in contradiction to my own 47-ish years of RPG experience. I mean, what am I supposed to believe, him or my own memory? I can produce play which simply doesn't square with some of the things he's said, AT WILL. Obviously his opinions and preferences in many areas are simply his and I don't really have an interest in disputing what people like. When they say it is impossible to do what I do every week, somethin' don't add up there! lol.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Who says their goals need to be 'mutually agreeable'? I don't know that the goals of the Wandering Souls in our BitD campaign are mutually agreeable. In fact there was a point where we debated exactly how the wheels would come off and what the different PCs might do (run off on their own, kill each other, steal from each other, whatever). A lot of it resolved when my character discovered that his deep distrust of a forgotten god was outweighed by his determination to save the children. I mean, could that have been a gamist choice on my part? Maybe. It seemed revelatory of my character's core nature though. Had I played it a different way, which would have been perfectly legitimate, then my character and @Campbell's character probably would have soon reached loggerheads. I think the game would have gone one, although its possible the campaign would have culminated sooner, its hard to tell. Nor do the other 2 PCs in that group ESPECIALLY share goals with mine. I mean, we do work together, as we are companions and are stronger as a group. In the end though the Wandering Souls is not a thing that will last, though perhaps some of our remaining cohorts will take up the legacy. I doubt we'll visit that action, its best left as an imagined postscript.

 

[Celebrim]

This entire notion is strange and incomprehensible to me!

That's your problem and your admission.

Well, this isn't the sort of statement that, IMHO, leads to any conclusion about anything. Sure, ANY sort of play MIGHT possibly arise out of almost any RPG. That's a pretty banal statement if you ask me.

No, it's a very surprising and controversial statement. I mean, one of the huge take aways of Forge was "system matters". I'm suggesting that system matters less than some other things.

What particularly matters about something like AW or BitD is less the system and more the fact that those games tell you different ways to prepare and think about playing the game, and if as you say your are naive person that has only been exposed to specific sorts of play then encountering those different ways of thinking about a game can revolutionize how you play. And those people legitimately experience radically different gameplay experiences associated with changing the system. It's a real and valid thing.

But what I'm saying is that prior to games encoding the processes of play, people invented them organically. And if you were the sort of person that played 12 different systems with 10 different GMs by the time you were 22 and were like B.A. from 'Knights of the Round Table' always trying to figure out how to play an RPG as an artform, well you hit on a lot of ideas 30 years ago in various forms that were only described and encoded and normalized later. And so when people come to you and say, "You can't do X in Y system, but Z does X", then that goes against your own experiences of play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Right, and that very process is the thing that is what Narrative RPGs focus on most. Who are the characters, not in words on the sheet, but in DEEDS? How do they change when faced with circumstance and experience? How does that play out in terms of the actual story? There's also potentially things like skilled play and enjoyment of other things like creating/exploring setting, etc.