RPGs are ... Role Playing Games

[Hussar]

But, unless every element is 100% ad libbed at the table, you have to have a number of story elements in place before the game begins. You need NPC's, most of those NPC's should have motivations and some means of achieving their goals, you need a setting and that setting should be dynamic enough that it is at the very least plausible.

So, what's missing from making this a story? You have setting, you have at least the beginnings of plot. About the only thing that isn't there is the character interactions. Once those are added in, you have a story.

I just don't see how you could sit down to play a session without any story elements at all. To me, it's an ongoing process, constantly being redefined as play progresses. But, the idea that there is nothing at all before the players sit down at the table is very difficult for me to believe.

 

[Celebrim]

But, the idea that there is nothing at all before the players sit down at the table is very difficult for me to believe.

Apparantly.

Just because you can't imagine it, doesn't mean it isn't possible. It takes some discipline to do it, and a lot of talent to pull off something other than a row boat among the stars (where lots of actions take place, but none of it accomplishes anything) but I can at least see how it could be done. Personally, I can't stomach more than a couple of sessions as a player, and find that I can't keep players entertained doing it for more than a session or two (because most players IME like to ride the railroad), but there are some real attractions to the approach in small doses and you should try it some time.

Well designed random tables help alot.

Try this:
0) Let the players determine thier own goals. One good starting point is asking them were in the game world they want to start out. Obviously, you need self-motivated players to manage this.
1) Randomly select an encounter with an NPC. If its a humanoid, you'll need a random profession subtable appropriate to the race.
2) Randomly determine the creature's hostility level. If the PC's interact, faithfully follow diplomacy rules for modifying creature hostility. Don't decide whether the monster is an ally or an enemy.
3) Decide on the spot what the creature is doing here.
4) Repeat.

If you do this long enough, the players ideally become immersed in the setting. Typically, you end up with players who are scheming rather than thwarting schemes. The PC wants to conduct a cattle drive, rob a bank, go on a crusade, organize a war party to plunder the tribe on the other side of the river, etc. It puts the PC's in a position to be active rather than merely proactive. As the DM, you've got no idea how the story is going to work out. You don't prep a story. You don't even prep NPC motivations. You end up with something more like SimCity and less like 'Balder's Gate' or 'Knights of the Old Republic'.

I'm sure The Shaman can tell you more about the techniques than I can. I only do this really for travel between hooks and plot points, but at one time this sort of emmergent story telling I considered nearly ideal. (Since that time I've decided that it has a problem with story pacing. I'm hoping this time to use hooks to drag players along a path until they get to the point they can sandbox.)

 

[The Shaman]

Can we put a sock in this debate?

If you don't care for the discussion, then don't participate.

 

[The Shaman]

Now interestingly, 'Illusionism' is not often 'Improvisation', but the two terms aren't mutually exclusive.

Illusionism requires some element of improvisation, but improvisation doesn't require illusionism, in particular giving "the appearance of choice without its substance."

That's why I draw a bright line between the two. 5E advocates choices without substance, which is about as far from the way I like to game as it gets.

 

[The Shaman]

I've been singing the praises of RPGs (specifically DnD) for years and I actively avoid comparing the game to anything else, relishing with a glint in my eye and saying "It's not like anything you've ever played." Cause it's not.

I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Seriously, that nails it for me right there.

 

[Hussar]

So, is this somethinglike like what you mean?

The Games We Play - The Choices You Made

In the chargen mini-game a series of images were chosen by each player to show either personal history or personal goals. The campaign, while it does have an over arching plot, will incorporate that information allowing the players to pursue those goals and shared history.

 

[LostSoul]

3) Decide on the spot what the creature is doing here.

You can use a random table for that, too. Even the 4E DMG2 has a good one.

 

[Imaginary Number]

Illusionism requires some element of improvisation, but improvisation doesn't require illusionism, in particular giving "the appearance of choice without its substance."

That's why I draw a bright line between the two. 5E advocates choices without substance, which is about as far from the way I like to game as it gets.

I'm still not sure I understand your definition of "illusionism," so please enlighten me if I'm not getting it. The idea seems to describe a situation in which the DM has predetermined a result and nevertheless allows a player to believe that the player's actions somehow will affect that result. If that's correct, I don't think you're fairly characterizing Fifth Element's approach -- picking up good ideas from players and running with them doesn't involve predetermining anything; the determination starts from the player's idea and goes from there. But I'll let him pick up that particular cudgel if he's so inclined.

From a more broad perspective, I disagree with your definitional "bright line" because it obscures the wide variation in gaming styles that Celebrim describes very well above. Some DMs like to run adventure paths with pre-written story arcs; some like to run a series of unlinked but pre-planned adventures; some like to allow the players to wander around the campaign world and see what happens as long as they let the DM know in advance where they're going (that's me; I'm not very good at improvising); some like to go full sandbox and have the players wander around as they will. You seem to be suggesting that all approaches short of the "full sandbox" are bad because they involve "illusionism" somehow, and I don't think that's true. Each approach involves meaningful player choice on some level -- the only difference is where the out-of-bounds lines are.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm still not sure I understand your definition of "illusionism," so please enlighten me if I'm not getting it.

Illusionism is when the DM makes something seem to happen that didn't.

Some examples:

1) You come to a fork in the road, but the sign has fallen on the ground. One way leads to the magical city, the other to the crypt of insanity. The players choose left and go to the magical city, not because it was on the left, but because the DM has determined that the first fork taken always leads to the magical city.
2) You are in a fight with the BBEG. Things seem desparate. You are maybe a mere round from a TPK, when the one character with a good action scores a critical hit! Everyone cheers, and the DM says, "You did it. The BBEG slumps to the ground!" The table goes crazy! Only the DM knows that the BBEG still had 10 hit points remaining when he died.
3) You are in a murder mystery. You suddenly realize the significance of an important clue - the Grand Vizor did it! You chase the fiend to his secret laboratory, which turns out to be a fully outfited necromancer's lab complete with flesh golem. In a grand fight, you dispatch the evil doer. Only the DM knows that originally, the Grand Vizor was an innocent alchemist seeking after the philosopher's stone and the Queen Regent was the evil necromancer. But the DM switched because he didn't want to dash the player's feeling of triumph.
4) You are fleeing from a collapsing tomb, jumping obstacles and dodging traps. You dive out of the entrance at the last second just as a great stone slab seals the tomb forever. The DM secretly delayed the collapse by two rounds to make up for your dithering because he didn't want to cause a TPK.

If that's correct, I don't think you're fairly characterizing Fifth Element's approach -- picking up good ideas from players and running with them doesn't involve predetermining anything; the determination starts from the player's idea and goes from there.

Doesn't matter where the idea comes from. If you are secretly retconning your intentions to enhance the story, you are engaged in illusionism. The trouble with illusionism is that its alot like winning a game when you are a kid and then discovering that the person you played the game with let you win. Some players are ok with that. They will willingly participate in illusionism and will themselves to overlook it even when they suspect it is going on. But alot of players do not want to ever believe, suspect, or find out that illusionism is going on.

You seem to be suggesting that all approaches short of the "full sandbox" are bad because they involve "illusionism" somehow, and I don't think that's true. Each approach involves meaningful player choice on some level -- the only difference is where the out-of-bounds lines are.

Illusionism of any sort tends to make player choice meaningless in the long run. Even when the player retains some degree of agency, that is, you are using the player's idea, when you engage in illusionism you've pretty much decided the outcome of the story for the player. The player loses the oppurtunity to fail, which means that they've also lost the oppurtunity to succeed.

Now, I'm not saying that illusionism is all bad, which might be your problem. I think The Shaman is making choices to run a game with as little illusion as possible. But certain kinds of scenarios are hard to run without some degree of illusionism, and a small amount of illusionism can provide alot of structure to a sandbox without significantly harming player agency (provided its being provided in fistfulls elsewhere). At some level, almost every game involves some measure of illusionism. In an adventure path, the GM tries to give the impression that the odds are always wildly stacked against the players, but in fact, the odds are usually really stacked heavily in the players favor so that success is the expected outcome. In a sandbox, the GM tries to give the impression of a 'real world', but at the same time the PC's end up with the oppurtunity to live really interesting lives that in the real world 99.99% of all people don't have. In other words, even the most grim and gritty sandboxes are almost always places to play, not places to work and perform monotonous repetitive tasks as they realisticly ought to be.

 

[Imaginary Number]

Illusionism is when the DM makes something seem to happen that didn't. ...

Doesn't matter where the idea comes from. If you are secretly retconning your intentions to enhance the story, you are engaged in illusionism.

Thanks for the very thougtful response to my post. What I've quoted above, I think, is where we're diverging. You're assuming that, when I create a scenario, I have intentions about how a given scenario works such that I can retcon the scenario when I feel like it and change the conditions of "winning." But sometimes I don't. Perhaps I decide to put a pack of ghouls in Room 5 of the Dungeon of Doom; I have no idea how many ghouls there are or why they're there when I write my initial notes other than that I want the party to fight ghouls, and perhaps a player suggests a really good reason why they're there in that number during the encounter that I haven't thought of before. I'll then make some more notes to fill in some more detail in other encounters consistent with that reason. This isn't retconning in the sense that I'm changing anything that's already been established; I'm creating in collaboration with the players. I think that's a meaningful distinction that "illusionism" doesn't quite capture.