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*TTRPGs General
Player-driven campaigns and developing strong stories
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<blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 8970414" data-attributes="member: 6670763"><p>The challenges of the campaign are the obstacles that stand in the way of the players achieving their goal. I think the main element that separates player-driven campaigns from scripted games is that the players pick the goals depending on their own and their characters' perception of what issues in the game world need to be faced and addressed. I believe that in addition to the players deciding who they want to challenge and oppose, it is also important for the players to pick who they want to support and approach for alliances against shared enemies.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think one important advice we could take away from this is to start the campaign with very unambiguous and clear cut conflicts and factions and arrange for the players to have to make decisions whose outcomes will be very predictable and immediate. No hidden agendas, manipulative NPCs trying to deceive them, or complex conspiracies at this point. Simple A or B options that will result in the consequence that the players can expect from them. And both need to be genuine options with meaningfully different outcomes.</p><p>(Making enemies or friends would probably be good consequences, as they create relationships that can become relevant later.)</p><p></p><p>To make preparing content more practical, and also to give players some guidance and unity to the party, I think it might be a very good idea to have the general background and outlook of the party established first, before working on populating the world with people and the players start thinking about the specifics of their PCs. When you pitch the campaign, it would be something like "In this campaign you are playing a group of young nobles trying to establish a new stronghold on the frontier" or "In this campaign you are playing a group of thieves trying to take over the city's underworld".</p><p>This is of course a predetermined long-term goal that the players will have to comply with during the campaign, but it is not a script that lays out a series of events that they will have to follow to reach the end. Instead it is a focus that helps the players to make characters who are compatible with each other to work for a common cause, and specifies for the GM what kind of content in regards to NPCs, factions, conflicts, and locations will actually be relevant to the campaign.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yora, post: 8970414, member: 6670763"] The challenges of the campaign are the obstacles that stand in the way of the players achieving their goal. I think the main element that separates player-driven campaigns from scripted games is that the players pick the goals depending on their own and their characters' perception of what issues in the game world need to be faced and addressed. I believe that in addition to the players deciding who they want to challenge and oppose, it is also important for the players to pick who they want to support and approach for alliances against shared enemies. I think one important advice we could take away from this is to start the campaign with very unambiguous and clear cut conflicts and factions and arrange for the players to have to make decisions whose outcomes will be very predictable and immediate. No hidden agendas, manipulative NPCs trying to deceive them, or complex conspiracies at this point. Simple A or B options that will result in the consequence that the players can expect from them. And both need to be genuine options with meaningfully different outcomes. (Making enemies or friends would probably be good consequences, as they create relationships that can become relevant later.) To make preparing content more practical, and also to give players some guidance and unity to the party, I think it might be a very good idea to have the general background and outlook of the party established first, before working on populating the world with people and the players start thinking about the specifics of their PCs. When you pitch the campaign, it would be something like "In this campaign you are playing a group of young nobles trying to establish a new stronghold on the frontier" or "In this campaign you are playing a group of thieves trying to take over the city's underworld". This is of course a predetermined long-term goal that the players will have to comply with during the campaign, but it is not a script that lays out a series of events that they will have to follow to reach the end. Instead it is a focus that helps the players to make characters who are compatible with each other to work for a common cause, and specifies for the GM what kind of content in regards to NPCs, factions, conflicts, and locations will actually be relevant to the campaign. [/QUOTE]
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