The Player vs DM attitude

[Celebrim]

This may just be semantics, but I run in exactly the reverse direction. I love to create plots and usually write many of them for a campaign. The key to all of them is that none of them belong to me as the DM. Each plot is attributed to someone or some thing in the game world.

I let the players create the situations that involve them.

I guess I should clarify what that means, especially sense people feel like quoting it.

First, it's impossible to have a game without a plot that the DM has some input on. Even if you are freeform and sandbox, the DM is shaping the plot of the game to some extent.

So really when I say, "create situations and not plots", I'm engaged in a bit of short hand abbreviation of the full idea. Technically, the short hand version of the full idea is incorrect, because as I just stated, you can't help but create a plot of some fashion.

To understand what I mean, you have to look at what plot usually means in a context other than a RPG. In a novel, the plot of the story principally revolves around the actions of the protagonist. Whatever the protagonist is doing is the plot of the story. The problem with this in an RPG context is its not the DM's job to determine before hand what the protagonists do. That means that some very common literary plots can only occur in an RPG when they are to a certain extent unforeseen. For example, a plot in which the protagonist betrays someone can be anticipated as a likely result in the scenario, but the plot of the adventure can't depend on that happening. This is in fact true of all traditional plots that involve growth or change on the part of the protagonist.

Likewise, a plot that depends on particular things happening to the PC's - like their being captured and having to prove their innocence in a trial - can't be planned out before hand as if they were a certainty. Such plots still might happen, but the overall plot can't depend on them and you better be prepared for forks in story.

This leads to a very long list of movie or novel plots that the DM can't actually plan for because they depend on the protagonist making particular choices that the DM ought not (IMO) actually force on the players. No matter how much you enjoyed the plot in your favorite movie or novel, you have no right and should not expect that plot to be the plot of your RPG story.

Of course, these plots might still happen, and they might even be somewhat likely, but you better recognize that they aren't certain.

An example might be a 'Man against Nature' plot where the action and dramatic tension depends on surviving some hazardous climate or situation. In D&D, this is by no means easy to set up. You may plan that the PC's get on a boat, there is a storm, and the PC's are shipwrecked, but in play all of the following could occur:

a) The PC's could cast a divination (even as simple as augury) to determine whether their journey is successful. Or they might have sufficient mundane skill to effectively predict the weather. They can delay the journey until they are assured of favorable weather. (Incidently, in practice, ship owners with access to magic may do this as a matter of course in your world, or at least, if I owned a ship, I would.)
b) The PC's may decide to find an alternate means of travel, taking the long land route when available, or even teleporting.
c) The PC's may have the skill and resources to prevent the ship from sinking.
d) The PC's may have the skill and resources to make the ultimate challenge trivial, bypassing everything you intended to create dramatic tension even if the plot does occur. An example of this is something as simple as 'Create Food and Water'.
e) The PC's may simply refuse to get on the boat out of a 'unreasonable' fear that the only reason that you'd want them on a boat is so horrible things can happen to them. The PC's may continually refuse to put themselves in a sitaution that they can't extricate themselves from if things go badly.

In effect, the PC's are often choosing whether they are going to risk a 'Man vs. Nature' plot.

 

[ExploderWizard]

In effect, the PC's are often choosing whether they are going to risk a 'Man vs. Nature' plot.

In theory, they have to risk this whenever they leave home.

 

[Dausuul]

Likewise, a plot that depends on particular things happening to the PC's - like their being captured and having to prove their innocence in a trial - can't be planned out before hand as if they were a certainty. Such plots still might happen, but the overall plot can't depend on them and you better be prepared for forks in story.

I must spread some XP around before giving it to Celebrim again.

This is the crucial thing for DMs to recognize. It's not that you can't plot out an adventure; you can, often in considerable depth. But when plotting, you have to keep in mind at all times that you cannot predict the actions of the PCs! To me, one of the cardinal rules of DMing is, "Everything you expect the PCs to fight, they'll want to talk to, and everything you expect them to talk to, they'll want to fight." And that's only one of the curve balls the players will throw your way.

Every decision point is a fork in the road, and failure to consider all possibilities means your plot has a hole in it. And since you're never going to think of all possibilities, your plot is going to have holes no matter what you do. That means you have to be ready to roll with it and adapt - which in the most extreme case can mean scrapping the entire story arc - when the PCs find one of those holes and wiggle through.

 

[Pbartender]

Technically, the short hand version of the full idea is incorrect, because as I just stated, you can't help but create a plot of some fashion...

...Of course, these plots might still happen, and they might even be somewhat likely, but you better recognize that they aren't certain.

One of the better descriptions of this that I've ever heard goes something like:

In role playing games, plot is what happens if the players' characters do nothing. The adventure is what happens when the players' characters forcibly evolve the plot through their own actions.

So while the DM necessarily needs a basic "plot" (the "situations" Celebrim refers to) to start from, in a well run game the plot is not and should not be static.

 

[SpaceWestern]

In role playing games, plot is what happens if the players' characters do nothing. The adventure is what happens when the players' characters forcibly evolve the plot through their own actions.

So while the DM necessarily needs a basic "plot" (the "situations" Celebrim refers to) to start from, in a well run game the plot is not and should not be static.

However, what happens when the players' characters go less with the general plot and just start killing off everything in sight because they don't trust these NPC's that they interact with in fear of these NPC's betraying their trust.

"Better to just kill this guy off because he seems untrustworthy. And, when I say untrustworthy, I mean he's being lofty and secretive."

That was the point of this thread, to rationalize how to integrate players back into the storyline of the campaign and act like their characters instead of a chaotic evil character all the damn time.

A good example would be in this Mutants and Masterminds campaign I was a part of. (I'm a player evaluating another player's strategy.) We got to the climax of our 3 weeks worth of gaming when we met our last boss. Right as the boss was beginning to monologue, the player in question interrupts and yells, "I SHOOT HIM!"

Mind you this campaign was taking all the bases of M&M but applying little to no powers for the sake of recreating a world like the Kick-Ass movie.

My point was that the players didn't even allow the campaign's secrets to be revealed and instead moved into the final phase of "kill the boss."

Boss was downed, set on fire, and end of story...

I wish he hadn't done that part, but I give credit for the DM to picking up the slack via ending the campaign with a very dynamic "to be continued" scene with the party being swallowed up by a submarine.

 

[Morrus]

I've seen too many DMs, heard too many stories, played in too many games, where the DM thinks the only way to "win" is either A) kill all the players

Really? I've never experienced that.

It's quite easy.

DM: "You all die."
Players: "Oh, that sucks."
DM: "Yeah. I win."

Or the long version:

DM: "You meet 1000 Orcuses."
Players begin fighting....
.... party dies.
DM: "I win."

I don't see how any DM can mistake the game for one where he has to try and kill all the PCs given that he can do it in 3 seconds without batting an eyelid.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Those DMs are like bored cats. its not the killing, its the process.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't see how any DM can mistake the game for one where he has to try and kill all the PCs given that he can do it in 3 seconds without batting an eyelid.

Maybe not, but have you ever read any of the Grimtooth's Trap products?

There is a particular strain of D&D which takes the deathtrap dungeon concept and runs with the idea that the idea is to bamboozle the players and hit them with so much that they are eventually overwhelmed. The goal in DMing this way seems to be to prove that you are more ingenious than the players and that you can always beat their best efforts.

 

[Nifft]

Maybe not, but have you ever read any of the Grimtooth's Trap products?

There is a particular strain of D&D which takes the deathtrap dungeon concept and runs with the idea that the idea is to bamboozle the players and hit them with so much that they are eventually overwhelmed. The goal in DMing this way seems to be to prove that you are more ingenious than the players and that you can always beat their best efforts.

Nah. Grimtooth's Trap books are like Monster Manual books. They exist so you can use a bunch of different kinds of traps, each one allowing the players to exercise their ingenuity on something they haven't seen before.

A DM who just wants to frustrate players & kill PCs doesn't need more than a single trap.

(Seriously, what kind of deluded DM would consider himself "ingenious" for using a trap someone else wrote.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[pemerton]

Exactly why would I let my character be kidnapped?

<snip>

One thing DMs have to get away from is creating plots rather than situations. This isn't a novel. This isn't a story you can lay down ahead of time. If your adventure depends on the players being kidnapped or arrested, then something is wrong. Of course players are going to resist having their characters be kidnapped or arrested.

<snip>

You don't have a right as the DM to set the players stakes in the story. Players choose what stakes that they have in a scenario. You can't set out to choose that this is a scenario about betrayal and loss. That's the players choice.

Yes and no. Suppose a player builds into his PC's backstory "I was trained by a mysterious sorcerer to act as his agent in his revenge against the wizards' guild that expelled him. But the morning after my final lesson in the words of power, I awoke before dawn, collected my spellbook and familiar, and ran off to pursue my own destiny in the world". This player seems to me to have given the GM licence to initiate a scenario about betrayal and loss - "As you turn off the main street on your way to the tavern, you see your former mentor out of the corner of your eye, and he sees you too - his eyes blaze with anger, but he is swept out of sight by the crowd." If I was that player, and I didn't have my spellbook and familiar on me, I'd be hurrying back to them to make sure they're safe!

Or to give a different sort of example - it's not per se objectionable for the GM to begin a session with "Rember last session you had returned to your rooms in the inn after a day spent talking with your contacts in the city. Well, you wake up - but you're not in your rooms anymore. It's dark, but you can feel metal shackles on your arms and smell the dampness of the baron's dungeons."

In either sort of case, I agree that once the GM frames the situation, it's up to the players to react.

I also think that different sorts of game mechanics have different sorts of implications for scene framing. If the game has rules for relationships, "hunted", etc, this has implications for setting up the conflict with the former mentor. If the game has a strong "action resolution mechanics = gameworld physics" approach, this has implications for the GM simply stipulating that all the PCs have been captured and imprisoned.

And just as important as mechanical issues - maybe more important - are shared expectations among players and GM as to what the game will be about and how the GM may proceed in scene framing. And I think this gets back to what the OP was concerned with. If players have been burned by adversarial GMing in the past, then they can be very hesitant to cede any scene framing power to the GM: their PCs have no backgrounds, no relationships, trust no PCs etc, and the players always insist that they have a roll to awaken in the tavern room, a (game-mechanical) chance to draw their weapons and fight off the would-be captors, etc. While this is one way to play an RPG, it is not the only one, and (in my experience) it tends to lead to games which, while perhaps tactically and even strategically interesting, are not all that engaging at the thematic level for either player or GM.

In short - if an RPG uses a fairly traditional, GM-centered approach to scene-framing, and if the participants want to move beyond the GM asking of the players "what do you do", then it can be helpful for the players to repose a degree of trust in the GM to frame scenes that will provide opportunites for protagonism (via the GM providing antagonism) but which are not themselves antagonistic on the part of the GM.

In addition to GM as antagonist and referee, then, we also have GM as scene-framer, guided by a sense (gained explicitly or implicitly) of what the participants want out of the game.

An example might be a 'Man against Nature' plot where the action and dramatic tension depends on surviving some hazardous climate or situation. In D&D, this is by no means easy to set up. You may plan that the PC's get on a boat, there is a storm, and the PC's are shipwrecked, but in play all of the following could occur:

<snip detailed examples>

In effect, the PC's are often choosing whether they are going to risk a 'Man vs. Nature' plot.

The solution here is to frame the scene at the right level and at the right point in the action. Depending how hard the GM is allowed to be (ie depending upon the preferences of the group), when the GM says "You board the ship and have been at sea for a week when a storm approaches" the players may be obliged to start from that point, or alternatively to treat the GM's description as a suggestion, from which the players may pull back if they want to - "No, my PC would never board a ship - she gets seasick - I would have coughed up the money for a teleport instead". Different approaches to GM power here obviously matter for the shape of the game, but don't have to involve deprotagonising players.

Mechanics also matter - does the Augury spell allow the PCs to predict and avoid the storm - ie its priority in gametime is mechanically implemented as a priority in realworld play time - or is it instead some sort of augment/secondary check that the player can call on when resolving the storm challenge itself? A game with the second sort of approach makes it easier to skip to the chase with dramatic scene framing. D&D, of course, has tended to use the first sort of approach.

When the occasional need to kidnap, imprison, or kill the PCs comes up, I usually do so by fiat.

I think D&D has some mechanical features that can militate against this - simulationist tendencies in action resolution of the sort I've canvassed above - but in general I think this is a pretty reasonable way to go, assuming that it fits with the preferences of those at the table. If everyone is content for a certain seem to be framed - or actively wants it to be framed - then just do so. Don't faff around hoping that the action resolution mechanics will get you there. (This can be seen as another implimentation of the motto "say yes or roll the dice".)