Players: How much control do you want in a campaign?

[eris404]

More curiosity questions - no particular reason for asking except for something to talk about.

I'm curious to see how much players contribute to the worlds they play in. As a player, how much control do you enjoy in a campaign/campaign world? Does your DM leave some of the details to you or do you fit your character in the DM's world? Here some examples of what I mean:

If you are playing a cleric, do you want to make up the details of the god your serve and the religion (with the DM's approval) or would you rather choose from a list of gods and religions the DM has provided?

Do you hate it when a DM restricts or forbids certain classes or races in his/her world or does it not matter?

Do you like making up countries or cities for your character's background or would you choose from locations the DM has already created?

Does it matter to you that the DM has an adventure preplanned (I don't mean "railroading" here) or would you rather choose what to investigate from several plot threads?

 

[Zappo]

Generally speaking, the world is built by the DM. Minute details and blank spaces - where this particular monastery is, what's the name of the mayor of this city - can be filled up by a player making up the background for his character. Allowing multiple people to have a substantial input into the world's specifics without a plan or design tends to make it less coherent and to ruin its flavor; playing a tiefling on Dragonlance may seem cool for a while, but it actually does much more damage than its worth.

IMO, wishing to play race X or god Y in a setting where it doesn't belong is kinda pointless. And actually hating it when the DM says no, is childish. Stupid. And definitely selfish. And, in 99% of the cases I've witnessed, the problem is that the player lacks enough imagination to make a unique character without breaking the setting to do so.

As for preplanned adventures vs. freedom of choice, a good campaign must strike a balance. Railroading is bad; having nothing interesting to do is just as bad.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I can't say I have a preference when it comes to "background" character details. If the DM wants to make it so I was born in Rythalis, a little thorp he created in the middle of Greenlance Woods, I'll accept without a fuss. If a DM wants to adjust my background story so it fits some past events in the campaign, no problem. If the DM asks me to detail my church's hierarchy, no problem at all. The only thing I'm wary of is DMs that make you write a background story (including hometown and relatives) for the sole purpose of pillage, murder, kidnapping or demonic possession.

As for character choices during the campaign, well, I prefer when there is actually a choice to be made. I'm not talking about a free-form campaign here, but I just don't want to play a super-railroaded campaign either.

A have an ongoing evil campaign. The characters are the bosses of a small thieve's guild in a big city. I throw several hooks at them, some more insistant than others, and they bite whichever they want.

On the other hand, I'm starting Sunless Citadel tonight, and I'm planning on running all the WotC adventures successively... The players know this and they accept that their course of action (course of adventure) is pretty much pre-determined (ie first comes Sunless Citadel, when that is done, they're heading towards Forge of Fury). I'll try to give the illusion that there is a valid reason for the characters to go from one adventure to the next.

AR

 

[Cor Azer]

I enjoy filling in the details of a particular country/city/village if the DM has barely fleshed it out. Of course, this hasn't happened often because I almost never get to be a player.

As a DM, I enjoy when player's take such initiative. It's with my guiding hand of course (because I know things about the world they don't), but anything that takes work off my schedule is good.

I enjoy preplanned adventures, but the DM needs to have the flexibility to adjust if us players do something unexpected - after all, we don't explicitly know what paths we need to take to solve this "preplanned" adventure.

 

[tonym]

...Does it matter to you that the DM has an adventure preplanned (I don't mean "railroading" here) or would you rather choose what to investigate from several plot threads?

Wow. That's a tough question.

Pre-planned adventures are much, much better than loosely-outlined or totally-winging-it adventures, IMHO, so I want lots of pre-planning.

Then again, I like choosing from several plot threads.

I guess my answer is...I want BOTH.


Tony

 

[Bendris Noulg]

To answer each question except the last, I'm going to say no. I view world creation and campaign management as the realm of the GM. If he asks for help and I'm suitably inspired to do so, I likely will. But if not asked, it doesn't even cross my mind.

If I make some choices that are under-developed, I might push or suggest some more development. For instance, if I have a Cleric and all the GM has is a deity's name, dominion of control, and Domains, I'm likely going to pester him for details until they are made available (What's the hierarchy? Where's the main temple? How prevelant the religion? etc.). I've been known to drive a few GMs batty that way.

Does it matter to you that the DM has an adventure preplanned (I don't mean "railroading" here) or would you rather choose what to investigate from several plot threads?

In this case I'd prefer the later, but the first is fine so long, as you point out, it's free of railroading.

 

[Desdichado]

This is typically GM stuff to me (and I like to GM, so that's fine.) However, I'm more than willing to help out in developing details like you mention, if asked. And as a GM, I'm more than willing to let players develop minor details like that as well, if I haven't done so already.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I usually have a generic idea of the social structure or type of area that my character orriginated from, and reasonably good DMs have always been able to suggest a good area they already have planned out or squeeze a small kingdom of that nature into their world - few have it mapped out fully even in their heads. Similarly I have a few cleric ideas I enjoy exploring and a lot of gods I find boring, so if a DM had a strict list of gods and domains as the only cleric options, and none interested me, I'd simply play another class. I don't mind campaign restrictions on classes and races if they serve a purpose in creating the story, though if the campaign was totally open except the DM doesn't like race X or class Y that would bug me a little.

As for preplanned adventures, I prefer preplanned campaigns - situations where there is a long term goal that can be pursued in several ways (or must be addressed in multiple ways) but the PCs have a great deal of control over where they go first. This can easily involve several preplanned adventures waiting for the PCs to wander into them, but I don't want to be led in order through the "correct" course of events.

Overall, I like to be a part of the story in a significant way, not just whether my character survives it. When I DM I like players to think the same way, so I know what to look for in a group.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Uller]

Replying here without having read the others so my reply is "pure" (not influenced by the opinions of others).

I like to have a good bit of control over the apsects of the game that affect my PC. Part of it is that this is how I like to DM...I like my players to make stuff up about their characters...subject to my approval of course. When I play, I don't like the DM limiting me too much.

If you are playing a cleric, do you want to make up the details of the god your serve and the religion (with the DM's approval) or would you rather choose from a list of gods and religions the DM has provided?

I can go either way here. I like somethings to be a mystery...As a low level cleric, I wouldn't proport to know everything about my religion. But if there is a particular "flavor" I'm going for, I'd like to be reasonably free to try.

Do you hate it when a DM restricts or forbids certain classes or races in his/her world or does it not matter?

Hate is probably a strong word. Mildly dislike. In my opinion, the players should have some influence on the flavor of the world/campaign. Example: In the game I am currently playing in my first character was a young rogue/con-artist who was pretending to be a blind seer/oracle. Other characters were generally non-fighter-types who would be better suited to an urban heavy role-play type campaign. At the start of the campaign, we were all swept up into an army and sent off to war where we were given a mission to try to assassinate the leader of the enemy army. Now, we made the best of it and my own character was able to use her skills to infiltrate the enemy leader's camp, so it was fun, but further adventures proved that this campaign was meant more for fighter-types so I (and a few other players) changed characters.

Do you like making up countries or cities for your character's background or would you choose from locations the DM has already created?

Yes. And as DM, I encourage my players to do the same. The campaign world is left very open so players have a lot of flexibility in this regard. If a player says "My character is a trader from a desert merchant empire with an Arabian flavor" I can usually reply with something like "Okay. There is one of those over here..."

Does it matter to you that the DM has an adventure preplanned (I don't mean "railroading" here) or would you rather choose what to investigate from several plot threads?

I definately like for the DM to have the adventure preplanned. I think it is a bad idea for the DM to allow the PCs so much freedom that the players feel completely at a loss as to what courses of action are reasonable. At the same time you don't want to feel like you are being led by the nose down a specific path.

As DM, I try to give my players a limited number of options (either between encounters or adventures).

Do you go left, right or straight?
Do you go look for the Ranger for help or do you go look for the evil Druid's grove?

Certainly the players can give an answer outside those options...but I think it is important that they be reminded fairly often of their most obvious options. As a player, there is nothing more frustrating than having no obvious courses of action (except being consistantly limited to one option).

 

[Caspian Moon Prince]

Basically, I figure that it is the DM's campaign world...I'm making a character that fits into that world and interacts with it. If an idea for a character or place can't fit into what a DM already has shown, then I'll put that idea someplace and work on something else. Any other details I'll flesh out unless the DM has already wrote something and, if not, I'll run any ideas I have on my character's origin by the DM before we set it in stone.

I think that only players without much imagination(as zappo said) or players that are wanting to cause problems will have a problem with restrictions in a campaign.

With preplanned adventures, I will try and go the course the DM has set out unless the DM says "where do you want to go now?" The DM that I player with is good with making sure that the way I'm going would make sense so I there really isn't a problem with railroading. In my campaigns, I do the same. I pretty much have a set adventure path, but if a player wants their character to go some place or do something specific, I'll make sure to work that into what I have planned.