Player vs Plot - DM responsibilities

[Aenghus]

Let's say a player is highly enthusiastic about a new campaign and has come up with a character with an ambitious bunch of goals that seem perfectly viable, and might be in another campaign. The player is analytical and goal oriented and likes being successful in the game.

Unfortunately, the DM is invested in secret backstory and plot that means the player's major goals are impossible and doomed to failure, though there is no way the player or character can know that for ages. The DM believes the secrets are integral to the plot.

What do people think a responsible DM should do, given that doing nothing will lead to the affected player most likely having a sucky game of constant failure capped by finding out his goals were impossible all along(as he's the most likely player to discover the secret) ?

Does your opinion change if the problem invalidating the character's goals isn't crucial to the overall plot and can be changed without affecting it majorly?

 

[Blackbrrd]

I like campaigns as cooperate storytelling. I prefer talking with my players about what sort of characters I think would fit, have them bounce ideas off me and then create the characters. Alternatively, the players could discuss what type of characters they want to play, and then I as a DM can come up with something fits.

I think that creating a campaign that's a total disconnect from the PC concepts is going to end up with uninspired players as the DM pulls in one direction and the players in another.

 

[Agamon]

Ugh. I don't want to try and say "this way to play is better than that way." I think having fun is the best way to play, regardless of the direction its coming from.

But, (you knew there was a "but", coming, right?) if a GM is worrying about his precious story over the inclusion of his players' PCs...that's not a game I want to be a part of. When I set up a game, I might have an inkling of what the metaplot will before the players become involved, but even that is not safe until I know where the players are coming from. A game where all the players, GM included, have investment, is the best kind, in my opinion. When the GM dictates where the game goes and the players are expected to follow along...that's less fun, if you ask me.

 

[Thaumaturge]

If at all possible, the DM could work with his player to "tweak" the backstory and goals to better fit the campaign. I do this stuff every now and then. I bounce ideas around, and I don't make anything sound like it's off the table. I try to come up with new stuff that is thematically similar, but just different enough.

If this doesn't work, then engaging in the above process, but with the secret is what needs to happen. Tweak the secret just enough that the player will feel successful--even if it is a pyrrhic victory in the end.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't think there is a generic solution. It depends on the player, the DM, the PC, and the plot.

So giving me a bunch of generalities doesn't really let me give you a specific answer.

In general, any player who is committed to victory rather than fun is a potential problem, because it's impossible for the DM to promise that without illusionism which - if it is ever revealed - undermines the player's victory. In short, if a player has a goal he should never assume that the fun is going to be in reaching the goal, but rather in striving for the goal - even if his story ends in tragedy. A player who is 'ego gaming', that is he needs to have his choices validated as brilliant by their successful outcomes at all times, is quite often dysfunctional and heading toward some sort of great dissatisfaction and falling out with the DM, unless the DM is also the sort that doesn't mind being an illusionist and doesn't mind simply playing back to the player his own fantasies while simultaneously having the skill to pull that off without letting the player really know that everything is being fudged to let him succeed. The more ambitious the goals of the player, and the higher standard he's setting for success, the worse it is. If the PC's goal is, "I wish to become a global dictator.", can be satisfied by, "I am the Baron of Overhill, liege of 10,000 loyal citizens and that's pretty cool even if it isn't global overlord.", or can be satisfied by, "I'm conquered a good swathe of land before dying in battle, and will be known and remembered like a Naploean or an Alexander the Great of this world.", then you are good.

A DM on the other hand who is committed to a specific fore-story rather than simply constructing setting backstory is likewise a potential problem. One of the most serious crimes a DM can commit against himself and his players is spending a lot of time imagining specific scenes and how they will play out, since in doing so he is actually excluding the input of his players. Thus DMs that do that often find themselves at odds with their players and trying to force them to make the choices that they had imagined them making with such earnestness. This DMing crime manifests itself in all sorts of ways that don't look like stereotypical rail-roading - the DM that has every monster ambush the party for example probably is such a DM.

As secret backstory, campaign level secrets are essential to a fun and successful campaign. But they certainly shouldn't be secret PC backstories unless the player has agreed to let the DM mess with them. Many players of course really want the DM to mess with them and hard, but others - probably having been burned by prior bad experiences - don't, and some just really want to feel more in control of their own destiny. There is nothing wrong with that.

However a player in my opinion has no right to create a back story which makes demands on the entire cosmology of a world. That's why it's absolutely essential for the DM and player to negotiate a back story that both can be happy with. If the player's goal is literally impossible or even just extremely unlikely, the DM should be up front with the fact that he doesn't think the character can succeed even if he doesn't want to explain why. For example, if a deity in my game is known to be chaste, I'm never going to allow a PC backstory that involves the deity being their ancestor. Pick a different more fecund deity. And if the deity has a goal seducing a chaste deity I'm going to be up front about the fact that this cannot possibly end well. As a DM I'm pretty open about player driven world change, but even so some things represent ambitions that just aren't going to happen even if we played continuously for 20 years and the D20s were ever in your favor even when the odds weren't.

 

[Bawylie]

Player wins, for me. I can rewrite or adjust a plot to cover the same ground by simply refluffing.

Or, I might just tell the player that the character concept will have major conflicts in the game world and see if they're willing to "lose."

 

[Aenghus]

I don't think there is a generic solution. It depends on the player, the DM, the PC, and the plot.

So giving me a bunch of generalities doesn't really let me give you a specific answer.

I deliberately avoided a specific example as I'm interested in the general case. I find any examples given risk focusing exhaustively on the details of the example rather than the general problem. This problem is purely hypothetical, though it draws on situations I've seen on both sides of the DM screen. Thanks for your input.

 

[Celebrim]

Ugh. I don't want to try and say "this way to play is better than that way."

But you are going to anyway...

I think having fun is the best way to play, regardless of the direction its coming from.

BUT.... you don't really believe that because there is a big but coming.

But, (you knew there was a "but", coming, right?)

Yup.

if a GM is worrying about his precious story over the inclusion of his players' PCs...that's not a game I want to be a part of.

It's always interesting to see how easily players break to one side or the other of this question as if there was an easy pat answer that always works for all plots and all player ambitions and behavior.

When the GM dictates where the game goes and the players are expected to follow along...that's less fun, if you ask me.

And yet to one extent or the other its the only game going. Even so much as choosing a game system and a setting dictates where the game is going and the players are expected to follow along. I've yet to meet the GM that allows each player to create a character using a different rules set - one guy has a Jedi from D6 Star Wars, another a 6th gen Tremere vampire, another has a HERO system superhero, one guy has a GURP 100 pt TL 7 police officer, and another is playing Donald Duck stated up from Toon. It might be an interesting experiment, and it would probably make a great comic book in the right hands, but I don't think it actually happens. But what sort of game is possible is at least in part dictated by system. Further, system generally informs setting (as a necessary consequence) and further the setting itself precludes and dictates the sort of characters you play. A mutated cacti martial artist is a great Gamma World character and works pretty well as a PC in game inspired by China Mieville's fantasy works (or other weird fantasy), but is a NPC in a Chill campaign and probably has no place at all in 17th century historical pastiche swashbuckling setting. And even when in theory you could fit it in because there is enough weirdness going on to allow it, you don't always have a game system that allows for it in a way that is balanced with other character options.

Any GM that doesn't realize he's dictating the game in a myriad of ways is a DM that is blind, and any player that doesn't realize he has some obligation to follow along is heading for a train wreck.

The real question isn't whether the GM is dictating the game or whether the player should follow along, but what sort of demands that each player can make on the other's game and enjoyment of the game are really reasonable. It's a trivial matter to postulate a character concept that offends a GM's sensibilities in a way you'd be sympathetic about, we just have to start breaking the grandma rule to discuss the details. Once we establish that there is an actual limit to the demands one player can make on the other, all the rest is just negotiation. Pretending that there is this one absolute rule and one side of the negotiation you have to come down on to make games work well (or better, or at all), is to be really blind to the actual nature of the game.

 

[WitchyD]

I think that DM should have laid out what, in broad terms, was going on behind the scenes to the players beforehand, so that they could prepare their characters accordingly. It sounds like someone wrote up a pirate character for a campaign that takes place in dungeons under cities. Nothing is wrong with either of those, but some communication could have improved everyone's experience greatly. If I were to DM a campaign in which secret plans were afoot, and my first session had PCs playing into those plans, I would let players know. Some blunt, initial we're-not-metagaming-see-these-blunders-we're-making is a lot more preferable than the alternative -- people feeling like their efforts were in vain.

 

[GSHamster]

I deliberately avoided a specific example as I'm interested in the general case. I find any examples given risk focusing exhaustively on the details of the example rather than the general problem. This problem is purely hypothetical, though it draws on situations I've seen on both sides of the DM screen. Thanks for your input.

Details matter in this case, though. Sometimes details can be adjusted to accommodate both sides.

However, for the general case, I would see this as a red flag on the part of the DM. The player is making goals based on a general expectation of how the campaign will turn out. The fact that these goals are invalid implies that the DM is preparing a major twist, invalidating the expectations. The question is if that twist will be well received or not.

This can be a complicated question. If everyone is on board with the twist, then it will work out well, even if previous goals have to be abandoned. However, if people preferred the "pre-twist" setting, then the twist will make them unhappy.