D&D General The Quantum Ogre Dilemma

[Micah Sweet]

Linear authored fiction--novels, movies, et al.--are not TRPGs, and confusing the media is in fact one of my pet peeves. That said, the story the game makes is the way things go. There isn't a story in the games I run before things go anywhere. I'm not running the game to tell a particular story, either; I'm just presenting people, places, things, and situations to the players and seeing what happens.

Then how can you claim that certain things will happen because, "that's just the way certain stories go"?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Neither of those, actually. I present the players with fictional people, places, things, and situations, and they decide how their characters react, then I decide how the fictional things that aren't their characters respond. While I make an effort to focus the things I present to the players on the things their characters need, want, or are otherwise interested in, I'm not "facilitating player awesomeness," nor am I "tell[ing] a story where the players play the stars." Both of those, by the way sound an awful lot like denigrating someone else's playstyle (though not mine).

I have seen the second as a description of an RPG in the book's introduction practically word for word. The first is a pet peeve of mine that I believe is a growing sentiment in modern games, particularly modern official D&D, even if it's worded less pejoratively.

 

[prabe]

Then how can you claim that certain things will happen because, "that's just the way certain stories go"?

I'm pretty sure that's not what I said. Lemme check ...

But we don't (that I know of, anyway). We're just playing a game that makes stories set in such a world. It doesn't break my suspension of disbelief in a novel when (genre appropriate) weird stuff happens to the protagonist, that's just kinda how (some) stories work.

You mean this? That's a comparison, not a statement of how my games work. Let me try to put this into different terms: Because the PCs are the primary characters in the fiction the game generates, I feel free to present any kind of situation, person, place, or thing that plausibly fits the existing fiction (that's the stuff that's already established, yeah?) and the genre-type expectations of the table, even if it's distinctly weird.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm pretty sure that's not what I said. Lemme check ...


You mean this? That's a comparison, not a statement of how my games work. Let me try to put this into different terms: Because the PCs are the primary characters in the fiction the game generates, I feel free to present any kind of situation, person, place, or thing that plausibly fits the existing fiction (that's the stuff that's already established, yeah?) and the genre-type expectations of the table, even if it's distinctly weird.

Ok, fair enough. Is weird stuff more likely to happen to the PCs in your game than other people in the world for any reason other than the logic of the setting and the situation?

 

[prabe]

Ok, fair enough. Is weird stuff more likely to happen to the PCs in your game than other people in the world for any reason other than the logic of the setting and the situation?

Uh ... The PCs are weirdness magnets. Most of the other people in the setting--the overwhelming, vast majority--aren't. So, no, most people traveling from a city aren't likely to come back and find that the Hunger Between Worlds is forcing its way in through people's minds, there; the PCs, on the other hand, likely will (and in fact have).

 

[Umbran]

Games and stories are very different things to me. A story is one way a situation could go, if the characters make certain choices and events play out in a particular fashion. I'm not running the game to tell a particular story, just to present a world for the players to explore through their PCs.

I think the GM running a game to "tell a particular story" as you describe it here is... a bit of a bugaboo - the fear of it happening is grander in our discourse than the actual risk of it happening.

Especially because it isn't like anyone's going to come crashing into your gaming session with a Star Trek device that injects a quantum ogre into your game. You don't want 'em? Don't use 'em. You're done. Easy-peasy.

 

[prabe]

I think the GM running a game to "tell a particular story" as you describe it here is... a bit of a bugaboo - the fear of it happening is grander in our discourse than the actual risk of it happening.

Especially because it isn't like anyone's going to come crashing into your gaming session with a Star Trek device that injects a quantum ogre into your game. You don't want 'em? Don't use 'em. You're done. Easy-peasy.

Agreeing with you:

There's a big difference between "running a game to tell a particular story," such as, oh, a bunch of people being dragged into a dimension of unrelenting grim horror to fight a vampiric lord/prisoner over some quantity of souls, and "running a game to tell a particular kind of story," such as, oh, a story about a couple of scoundrels trying to get rich and/or powerful in a post-apocalyptic dieselpunkish city. One is about the specific story, the other is about--at least broadly--genre.

 

[Reynard]

I don't think I would say that the game mostly belongs to the players. That essentially makes the GM their employee. As a general statement that feels untrue. Are you talking about a specific game?

The games I run aren't mine, they're ours. There are more of them than there are of me, so the game belong mostly to the players seems to check out.

Basically this.

 

[Umbran]

There's a big difference between "running a game to tell a particular story," such as, oh, a bunch of people being dragged into a dimension of unrelenting grim horror to fight a vampiric lord/prisoner over some quantity of souls, and "running a game to tell a particular kind of story," such as, oh, a story about a couple of scoundrels trying to get rich and/or powerful in a post-apocalyptic dieselpunkish city. One is about the specific story, the other is about--at least broadly--genre.

Well, what you present look like story setups. As described, "a particular story" is more than either of those - it includes not just the setup, but the path and results in detail. What you mention there is far too high level to call either one a "particular story".

As in, if you dragged two different parties into that dimension of unrelenting grim horror... the stories of what happens to them there could still be quite different.

 

[prabe]

Well, what you present look like story setups. As described, "a particular story" is more than either of those - it includes not just the setup, but the path and results in detail. What you mention there is far too high level to call either one a "particular story".

As in, if you dragged two different parties into that dimension of unrelenting grim horror... the stories of what happens to them there could still be quite different.

There's a difference between the two that seems clear to me--I think it's in the infinitive verbs--but while I'm disagreeing with you here I'm also not really looking for argument. After all, I think the one will necessarily end with the PCs fighting the vampiric lord/prisoner of that dark place, (if they don't die first, of course) while the other will be much more open to player/character choice, especially in the line of what "and/or powerful" looks like to them.