What happened to the story?

[Look_a_Unicorn]

I checked this thread out in the hopes that people would be mentioning bits and pieces of story elements that they'd created- the discussion is all well and good, but that was mostly what I wanted to read. With that in mind, I'll practice what I preach and note down a few ideas I've had that I'd like to build into a campaign one day.
I won't go into NPC's, as making ones with your own personalities/goals/quirks is more fun than trying to interpret someone else's thoughts anyway

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Arcane Magic Source:
Members = "Hands of the Tower"
A mage guild, source of MOST standard spells- obviously a political power- keeps close tabs on people's access to magic in (insert realm name here). Primarily funded through utalitarian/entertainment angles. Fears to become a major power as (realm leaders) are very wary of them.
Each outpost would have a library with all <= 3rd lvl spells.
Performing quests for this guild allows them to trust you more with higher level and more dangerous (evocation/necromancy) spells.

There is one central bastion- The Tower, artifact class bulding.
Has much larger interior than exterior- classrooms are created demi-planes with specific rules to aid teaching. Demi-planes sustained by incredibly secret power source (invent your own...) This power source is also a key vulnerability if it is removed.

Students rae always taught to make backup spell books and to immediately report newly discovered spells to the central Guild (new spells (in my world) would be very tricky/dangerous things to create)
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A form of Divine Template (mostly for NPC's)
In my world there are few real gods, fake religions still gain power through human belief... eventually forming new gods, a major event.
Every "real" divinely promoted religion has divine agents- that's divinely inspired and enhanced as compared to half-celestial/demon, although templates may be similar. The existance and identity of these agents is VERY secret- generally limited to higher ranks in the clergy of specific faiths- as they can generally only carry out their behind-the-scenes subtle work when they are not being monitored and interfered with by rivals.
This template would be upgradeable over levels/quests, and is one of the only ways that special celestials/demons are added to heavenly/demonic hosts. (Saints/Forsaken).

Obviously agents of "evil" gods could be the enemies that the PC's unknowingly thwart the plans of... or the plans of the good agents could require the PC's to help execute.

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World flavour- druids and "natural" magic

Druidic powers don't come from a nature god or even an overall "power of nature"- but rather from FLOWS of nature (leyline theory?). These currents are generated by natural areas- under or above ground- but are diluted by the hands of sentients reshaping the environment to their own needs (cities/sculpted caverns).
Any druid can access these ley lines to invoke lower level powers, but for the higher level spells must be "attuned" to a specific type of region (marsh, forest, tundra, desert).
The type of terrain chosen by the druid could either grant a bonus like a familiar, maybe a penalty (-1 caster level) on opposing terrains.
For a bit more effort you could even slightly modify a druid's spell list per terrain chosen to reflect a theme more appropriately.

Finally a "sentience" druid could be a druid of the city- one who's powers come from the powers generated by many sentients/souls crammed into close proximity. A modified spelllist for this kind of druid would include more mind-affecting spells.

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Campaign backstory/plothook source

A number of scattered monasteries that live in relative seculsion but are known to be havens to those of goodwill. Superficially they espouse a worship of "The Faces of Goodness"- whereby all the Good gods worshipped throughout the Realm are seen as equal aspects of a greater good.

Secretly, these monastaries are the remnants of a fabled force of good that once rose up to defeat a time of great evil. (make this evil whatever is suitable- undead, demons, evil cults, mindflayers, Rakoth Maugrim...)
Once the evil was defeated, this group led the lands for a time, but the leaders were given a choice. They could continue to lead as they had been, or hand over leadership to secular authorities. The Joined Gods preferred that it be handed over to secularism, as they knew that over centuries the group's leaders would eventually lose sight of their holy mission and become corrupt/human, and the Joined Gods also knew that a time would come once again when the evil would need to be faced.

I plan on having an otherwise tranquil world start to suffer minor planar invasions and "creatures of nightmarish legend" begin to appear from nowhere, as a precursor to the time when the great evil will return.
The monastaries would be a source of information for the PC's, and if they fail to stop the reaccurance of the evil, the monastaries would be the few truly safe havens (spiritual shields on TRULY holy lands). Most of the rest of the lands would crumble and fall. The PC's can then try to fight back



I have a few more, but I reckon this might be enough to encourage others to mention in brief campaign ideas or groups they'd like to share with us

 

[Rel]

I don't know why I didn't think to mention this before but another issue regarding the publication of story oriented material came to mind and that is the varied audience and how you have to know your audience in order to figure out what kinds of stories will work for them. As my starting point for this concept I point to one of my favorite RPG resources, Robin Laws' Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering.

In this book he describes the various different types of players. These are The Power Gamer, The Butt-Kicker, The Tactician, The Specialist, The Method Actor, The Storyteller and The Casual Gamer. I won't try to describe these categories beyond what is probably obvious from their titles. But I feel that my ability to run a good game took a big leap forward when I came to understand what kinds of players are in my regular group and the reasons why they choose to participate in this hobby.

Before I understood this, I just put together a campaign and ran things like they seemed they should be run. I was successful more often than I failed but this was simply because I was acting to fulfill their needs as players on a subconscious level. And there were plenty of times when I seemed to have a hard time pleasing one or two players in particular and I must confess that some of the ways that I tried to fix those problems only made things dramatically worse. It wasn't until I consciously chose the designs of my campaign to fit with this particular group of players that I started feeling like I was really firing on all cylinders as a GM.

My point is this: The kinds of setup that will ultimately engender the story for my campaign are suited to the particular group of players that I've got. If I had a group with a different mix of player types then I would probably try to set things up very differently.

In my opinion this will have one of two effects on story oriented material: It will make it much more difficult to write such that it takes into account different types and mixes of players OR the resulting product will really only be best suited for a limited type or mix of players.

To give an example of what might result, you could have a book that suggests moving from one exciting, edge of your seat action scene to another with minimal transition in between because action and excitement really grab players and keep them interested. This might be true for a group populated with Butt-Kickers, Casual Gamers and certain types of Storytellers and Specialists but it might be a big failure for a group heavy on Tacticians and Method Actors. Conversely a book that tells you to slowly drop in clues to the plot at hand, not railroading players into pre-set action sequences and letting things unfold at a pace chosen by the players might do great with Method Actors, Tacticians and some kinds of Specialists but the Power Gamers and Butt-Kickers might be pulling their hair out in frustration.

A book that tries to write guidelines to account for all of the possibly types and mixes of players will have to almost impossibly long. Better (IMHO) to identify the types of players, identify the sorts of things that interest players of that type and try to figure out ways to blend those interests together into some kind of coherent story.

Does that all make sense?

 

[fusangite]

I'm not the biggest Ron Edwards fan but I think he had it right when he said that story is the product of gaming. Gaming is not storytelling but it had the same output as storytelling: story. Improvisational theatre, similarly, is not storytelling but its output is nonetheless story.

So, for that reason, I am interested in resources for story production. I think the reason there is a dearth of them on the market is that the actual creative processes of GMs are so different and the areas where GMs will need aid are hard to predict.

The kinds of things I need as a storytelling resource are things that help me with travel times, travel distances, weather and ecology. Other GMs might want help with other aspects of world-building where they lack knowledge in the real world.

But I think one of the reasons that there is not much publishing going on in these areas is that non-gaming material can be used easily as resources for gaining this kind of knowledge. All we need, and I think we need a great deal more of it than we have, are things that translate these things into game mechanics. I would have purchased Frostburn if it actually told me how to model all the arctic environmental conditions I would like to. Or imagine if they had listed all the various potential mounts that could go through cold climes, how much they could carry, what their movement rate would be like over various kinds of snow or how cold an environment they could survive in -- wouldn't you love to know which kinds of cold places you can put yaks in and which you can put dogs in?

The reason story benefits from things like this is that then the players can enter into the process of doing things like choosing mounts, developing travel strategies, coming up with new combat strategies tailored to their environment, etc. This moves things like this away from GM fiat and towards a collaborative process of storytelling. It is the heavy codification of D&D that enables more collaborative processes of story generation.

So, yes, there are holes in terms of GM resources. We need to get away from only looking at the fantastic elements of the environments our publications describe and describe all the elements, fantastic and otherwise in ways that relate to the game mechanics. It's been over 30 years and there is still nothing in the rules telling me how fast a yak can go over which kinds of terrain.

 

[mythusmage]

In the spirit (so to speak) of what Fusangite just said...

What story? A story is a narrative of what has occured. An RPG session is the events as they occur. While the events are, at their core, fictional, they are more like real life than they are story.

The core to any good setting is place and situation. What is the location like? What is going on there? The question of how the PCs get involved is best left to the players, though a good GM can always make suggestions. The more compelling the setting, the more engaging the situation, the better the chance the players, through their PCs, will get involved.

The trick is to get them engaged. The greater the emotional investment, the better the chance they will respond by becoming involved in the events as they happen.

The story? The story will arise out of what happens during the course of the game, as the players recount the events that have occured. Don't try to force it, let it happen naturally. The more engaged, the more involved they are, the better your chance they will tell stories about the adventures you've run.

My advice to all who read this is, learn how to describe things. Most especially, how to keep your description concise and evocative. And learn when description is appropriate.

For instance; if the PCs know about orcs, and have seen orcs, then calling what they've just encountered an orc is appropriate. But if the PCs have never heard about, much less seen, an orc, then a bit of description is appropriate.

DM: He's about 5' 6", broad-shouldered and bandy legged. Skin is rough and warty. He's grinning at you while idly swinging a double-bitted axe one-handed. It's a carnivore's grin.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The trick is to get them engaged. The greater the emotional investment, the better the chance they will respond by becoming involved in the events as they happen.

Maybe they just need the money.

 

[Tom Cashel]

(Hey, this must be the new EN World, where even the Moderators can rot perfectly good threads with back-and-forth exchanges that no one else wants to read. Take it to e-mail, y'all!)

EDIT: See how thread-rot afftects us all? I didn't even realize I was adding onto/restating what fusangite and mythusmage just said.

I don't think "story" is something that the GM creates on their own, at least not in your typical D20 game. In White Wolf games (for instance) the GM is expected to plot an opening, several scenes, and a ending. But not so in D20--the rules don't mention anything about plotting a story ahead of time.

Story happens in real time if the GM has put the pieces in place.

The onus is on the GM to create interesting supporting characters (NPCs) with their own motivations, engaging scenery (but not scenes), and one or more "hooks" to get the players going. Once the players choose how they'll go after that first hook, your story has begun.

"Story" doesn't have to be complex. "Once upon a time a man woke up. He went down to the corner for some coffee and a newspaper. The rest of his day was uneventful. The end."

Not compelling or particularly interesting, but it is a story.

So the GM must set out the components, and make them more interesting than "waking up," "corner store," "coffee," and "newspaper." What the PCs do when they encounter the GM's set-up creates a story. The story can be written down later, or just remembered and retold to unwilling listeners.

I guess what I'm saying is that "story" in gaming should be the interaction between the players and the many components laid out by the GM. I think RPG stories created collaboratively, without any preconceived notions (on the part of players or GM) of where the story will go or conclude, end up being the most rewarding for all involved.

A book on how to set up the pieces so that collaborative storytelling can happen would be very interesting. Maybe I'll write it.

 

[mythusmage]

Maybe they just need the money.

How do you hook PCs who have everything?

 

[BryonD]

Finally, the argument "I can do story myself" is one that is brought up often in this kind of discussions. And if the fact that you can do it yourself doesn't inhibit your need for story-based books, why bring it up? You'd still like to see story books, but you don't need to, because you can do it yourself.

I can do rules myself. I can do story myself.

I can use other people's ideas for rules in my story.
I find that close to never does anyone else's story ideas provide added value to my story ideas.
To the contrary, story ideas are effectively always someone else's story to use. Which defeats the point of playing.

Making up rules is fun. But the story IS the game. I'm not going to pay someone else to play the game for me.

Buying an rpg book with mechanics is like buying a glove to play baseball.
Buying a fantasy novel is like going to watch a game of baseball.
Buying a story rpg book is like buying a glove to go sit in the stands at a ballgame and hoping a foul ball comes your way. You may still enjoy the game, but you are not getting much value for that glove.

There is a fundamental difference between rules and story and it goes far beyond whether or not someone can make them on their own.

 

[BryonD]

Gotta disagree with you 100%. That's just a GM who has no imagination. Add something like Stunting from Exalted if you want more descriptions. And I guess, in your example, I'd actually expect the player to describe what he's trying to do and then tell him how he suceeds based on damage, etc...

I completely agree.

There are certainly times when fighting a bunch of mooks that dropping one and "I cleave" the next is good enough and everyone can use their own imagination for the details. But as DM I often take it as part of my job to add in some details.

But that has nothing to do with system. The worst no-detail DM I ever played with was in 1E. If he's running 3E now, I'd bet he is just the same.

Then again... I'm one of those people who when he reads about how GMs should keep the suspense of the game by adding tons of description to every monster and not state their name laughts. Yeah, I'm going to spend twenty minutes describing how terrible an orc looks so that the players dont' know it's an orc. I've got better things to do like game. If I want description, I'll go read some fiction.

Again, I agree. The players and their characters know what orcs are and what they look like. Details are for the orc with the sword dripping that black fluid, not the 40 grunts before him.

Now brign in some totally new monster that is different completely and I'll descrive that. Right until I screw up and say its name, which happens half the time.....

 

[dead]

That's acting, not storytelling.

Yes, it is acting but the point I'm getting at is that with every time you roleplay or even roll that d20 to strike that frost giant a narrative is unfolding.

You are inadvertantly creating a story with the GM.