What a great storytelling DM looks like

[Ariosto]

I think the "non-storytelling DM" is, in the context of this thread, at least as fictional a figure as the "railroading DM".

I am not going to 'defend' causality against Barastrondo. I will simply state that I have no magical power to use information I do not yet possess. I must conceive a goal before I can intentionally direct anything toward it. That is fact.

My opinion is that a great DM lets the players choose their moves for themselves -- and that the wide-open range of viable moves not only once was a signal distinction of D&D from other games, but remains a notable provision of human-moderated RPGs versus electronic offerings. It is to me a virtue to maximize, reducing only by the minimum necessary to accommodate other needs.

Another virtue is the potential for characters to "come alive" with a dynamism that scripted depictions do not provide. This is not only a nifty "end product" but a powerful tool for the DM.

The design of a specific encounter or scene is of rather limited utility. At the extreme, it describes only a momentary event that may not come to pass at all -- with but a single window of opportunity. Working up 5 possible scenes when at most one can take place may be onerously inefficient labor.

Enter the well-realized NPC, the character with character. What are his or her values, aspirations, hopes, fears, habits and so on? The fuller one's grasp of those, the easier it is to deduce the character's behavior in response to any circumstances. No longer is it necessary to cover all possibilities by "brute force" methods.

This is applicable to more than just individual people. One can get a similar feel for a community, or an animal species; even a place may take on character this way.

Some game systems are difficult to use without a lot of prepared 'stats', and those can draw a lot of attention to themselves. My own experience, both as a DM and as a player, suggests that there's more mileage in time and energy spent on character definition of the 'soft' sort I have lauded here. I would rather skimp on stats than go the other way.

 

[Barastrondo]

Considering my complaints, it hardly makes sense to consider unreasonable Barastrondo's remark.

So, I am sorry that I did not sooner apologize for impoliteness directed at him, and to others -- and for the compounded lack of consideration of inflicting such a "tone of voice" on bystanders as well.

Thanks, Ariosto. It's appreciated.

Ethan, next time you're up this way I'll introduce you to KidSnide; like (contact), I imagine you guys would get along well in person.

Sounds like a good deal. Thanks! I hope to be able to take you up on it before long.

Since I leave the players in control of what's going on in the game, it's not really necessary for me to make adjustments like this. They can provide their own catharsis for the rigor of modern life as they see fit.

Sure! It's a good method. I just frequently find that I need to be a proactive nudger, for reasons that vary from group to group. If we play on a weeknight after work, people might not have the energy to come up with proactive agendas, and would rather react to external prompts. If we use bizarre homebrew settings (like my current Gormenghast/Labyrinth/Poe mashup), they frequently prefer that I introduce them to the setting with actively giving them things to react to. It lets them become familiar with the setting through play, without having to do quite much reading up beforehand to see what is likely to fit, and is a little less work than their defining the setting as they go.

Actually, because I exclusively homebrew, I spend a lot of time working out the details of a setting as I go. I'm running the aforementioned strange baroque city game at the moment, as well as something set in a more Renaissance Italy-inspired fantasy country, and neither of them are settings I've exhaustively detailed ahead of time. So it's not time to figure out a city until the players absolutely are headed there — until then, I simply have a list of notes to work from. My players can guess (and my wife certainly knows) that I don't have everything pre-prepared, but it is all ready for them, if that makes sense.

I think it wouldn't work for the experience you are interested in; there would be the meta-knowledge that the world is not already fully formed. If that meta-knowledge doesn't bother you, though (as it doesn't for my friends), then there's still the experience of having the world spread out before you in each direction you go, and if a few details are ad-libbed while others have been set for years, it doesn't detract too much from the overall fun of the game.

I admit that it's kinda difficult for me to relate to a "fleet of spelljammers that are going to pillage half the world." It's pretty far removed from my own refereeing experiences, as I'm singularly not fond of world-shaking events in the games I run, so I'm at a bit of a loss here, I'm afraid.

It's something of a facetious example for me. I'm not fond of world-shaking events, either — largely because as a player I've been on the side where "Hey, it's time to go get involved in this world-shaking event or all the places and NPCs you're fond of will suffer." I really disliked being forced to choose between participating in a conflict that I don't care for or "paying for my choice" by having some of the setting elements I do care for removed.

The real lesson, of course, is that when I'm setting conflicts into motion (such as NPCs preying on other NPCs in a way that PCs may notice and get involved in), I'm careful to pick those that I can guess my players are going to enjoy. But I'm not crazy enough to assume that I won't ever make a mistake, so absolutely I have a backup plan.

I will not, however, set aside war with Spain because the players aren't interested in the conflict.

In the sense of a historical game, yes, I think it's important for the sense of being there that history does not alter without player intervention. In the sense of a fictional setting, though, one that's ostensibly created solely for the purpose of players, there's less of that impetus. I feel it's good to keep in mind at all times that the setting is there to serve the players, unless everyone agrees otherwise. That can mean a lot of different things, but it does tend to prompt me to think about alternate answers to "what if we held a war and nobody wanted to game through it?"

I think a setting would be damaged if the war between, let's call it Bretonnia and the Empire, suddenly died out and was never mentioned again because the players said "ugh, not what I'm here for." But if the players wanted to keep rollicking around the border more than anything, then maybe it would be time for some sort of adventure to crop up wherein they can avert the war in some fashion, or at the very least shove some NPCs into resolving it, depending on the tastes of the players.

Right now my biggest 'outside' influence on the campaign is Pendragon. I like the concept of characters as part of a dynasty; it fits the kind of campaign I'd like to run, and one that's well-supported by the career rules in Flashing Blades.

That fits well, and makes perfect sense. Pendragon's not quite my cup of tea — for various reasons, I'm most interested in legacies that can be transmitted in ways other than natal inheritance — but it suits the simulationist elements to a game like that quite well.

I've enjoyed the discussion, by the way.

So have I. I'm always interested in seeing how people run games unlike my own. Sometimes there's even stuff to steal.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

Enter the well-realized NPC, the character with character. What are his or her values, aspirations, hopes, fears, habits and so on?

I think it's a good point that having a dynamic NPC can let you put pressure on the players even if you're a sit-back DM in scenes where there aren't NPCs pushing their own agenda.

However, in practice I find that drawing the line between me and the NPCs I roleplay is difficult. (e.g. the horror of the Mary Sue GM PC).

If every NPC that the players ever meet is saying "please save us from the spelljammers" or "I am an advance scout from the spelljammer fleet here to kill anyone who could resist our invasion," then the players are probably justified in thinking that fighting the spelljammers is part of the DM's agenda, and not just that of the NPCs being portrayed.

So having a variety of NPCs with a variety of motives is important. For me it was a big revelation to read through the Moldvay Red Box a year or two ago and see that making a random reaction roll was part of the standard procedure for any encounter. (I grew up with the Blue Box and AD&D, where this isn't as clear.) I think it leads to richer dungeon design if I have to prepare ahead of time for the possibility that the dice will say the unicorn attacks on sight and the goblins welcome the party with open arms. The advantage here is that, by being open to dice-based random results, I'm also open to whatever the players come up with. If they want to make friends with the goblins, awesome: I've already thought of a rationale for why they might work together, in the course of prepping for a favorable reaction roll. (Note that the reaction roll sets only the initial attitude; the players get the invigorating surprise of hostile "good" monsters and friendly "evil" ones without losing the chance to change their attitude through negotiation.)

I also find that the more vigorously I play an NPC, the harder it is for me to stay impersonal about their agenda and its fate. (And as a player there have been times where I felt like the DM was out to punish me & my character for the way the party had treated a NPC that was a favorite of his). I find that random rolls are a useful disconnect mechanism here for me too: when the players had stolen something from a powerful cleric and I was thinking about "how will he revenge himself on the party," I found it slipping uncomfortably into "how will I get back at them?" Making a quick d6 table of possible reactions helped me remember that, like the dice, this NPC was something outside myself; and prepping the table led me to think about alternate directions, like what allies the NPC could call on to assist in his revenge, that proved to be useful even when that wasn't the option the dice chose.

How do other GMs deal with these issues of making sure that NPCs don't all reflect their own outlook and agenda, and of separating their NPCs from themselves?

 

[Mark]

In the sense of a fictional setting, though, one that's ostensibly created solely for the purpose of players, there's less of that impetus. I feel it's good to keep in mind at all times that the setting is there to serve the players, unless everyone agrees otherwise.

I think this is a problematically broad statement. A setting created for the players to, through their characters, explore is not by default there to serve the players.

 

[Gimby]

I think this is a problematically broad statement. A setting created for the players to, through their characters, explore is not by default there to serve the players.

Given that formulation, I think it probably is - its certainly not there to serve the *characters*, but if it's for the players to explore, it serves that purpose for them. Could you clarify what you mean a little?

 

[Mark]

Given that formulation, I think it probably is - its certainly not there to serve the *characters*, but if it's for the players to explore, it serves that purpose for them. Could you clarify what you mean a little?

The break in verisimilitude of having a war not happen because the player characters went left instead of right on the other side of the world seems antithetical to the manner in which I am used to experiencing how homebrewers treat their settings. If the players have their characters dawdle (or even intentionally drag their feet) and they do not get to the warring area of the world until the war is over, then so be it. The war waiting for the player characters is a function of pre-written adventures, not settings.

 

[Barastrondo]

I think this is a problematically broad statement. A setting created for the players to, through their characters, explore is not by default there to serve the players.

I would figure if you start broad, the specifics of narrowing down are left to the individual social contracts of the groups in question. Most groups will narrow it down, of course; the end result is going to be a world that is independent enough of the players that it feels real and can surprise them, but not so independent of them that the players are essentially interchangeable, and have no real ownership of the setting. There's also a lot to consider in the difference between a setting created for the sake of a home game, and a setting you're hoping to publish or otherwise make available to people you've never met, so starting broad's probably the only way to make an accurate generalization.

But I do think "the setting is there for the players" makes a better starting point (or a fallback point) to sculpt an individual social contract than does "the setting is not there for the players." If nothing else, it's an important reminder that the players matter.

 

[Mark]

I would figure if you start broad, the specifics of narrowing down are left to the individual social contracts of the groups in question. Most groups will narrow it down, of course; the end result is going to be a world that is independent enough of the players that it feels real and can surprise them, but not so independent of them that the players are essentially interchangeable, and have no real ownership of the setting. There's also a lot to consider in the difference between a setting created for the sake of a home game, and a setting you're hoping to publish or otherwise make available to people you've never met, so starting broad's probably the only way to make an accurate generalization.

But I do think "the setting is there for the players" makes a better starting point (or a fallback point) to sculpt an individual social contract than does "the setting is not there for the players." If nothing else, it's an important reminder that the players matter.

Players characters derive "ownership" in a setting by virtue of their actions, not through entitlement dictated by "social contracts" between players and GM/DM/referee Otherwise, it produces games with hollow victories and rampant inconsequentialism.

 

[Barastrondo]

Players characters derive "ownership" in a setting by virtue of their actions, not through entitlement dictated by "social contracts" between players and GM/DM/referee Otherwise, it produces games with hollow victories and rampant inconsequentialism.

"Hollow victories" and "rampant inconsequentialism" seem to me to be perfect examples of why game-based social contracts come about, given that they're subjective judgments in the first place. Deciding that the setting comes before the need of the players is another potential way to make the players' victories hollow and actions inconsequential.

Social contracts aren't some sort of revolutionary democracy talk, they're just basic human interaction. Even an unstated "don't be a jerk, or you're out on your ear" rule is a social contract. Understanding what your players expect out of you and their understanding what you expect of them is pretty useful stuff.

 

[Mark]

Deciding that the setting comes before the need of the players is (. . .)

And since that is not what I advocated, either, I guess we'll just leave that strawman aside.

Social contracts aren't some sort of revolutionary democracy talk, they're just basic human interaction.

Social contracts that provide the kind of entitlement you suggest are what I was addressing. Let's not broadbursh my posts in a way that marginalizes the facts.