When Player Driven Adventures Don't Pan Out

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah, I think the one common thread we're seeing amongst the folks posting about success of player-driven campaigns is that they all seem to involve player contribution to the setting. This may be by way of formal prompts as part of character creation or it may be the product of a GM who just asks players questions about their characters and then uses the answers.

I think one of the main things to consider in this regard is to not commit to too much about the setting before involving the players. I think there's a lot of advice about GMing online and through other sources that says you need to have a whole world created, or if not a whole world, then an incredibly detailed starting area. And neither of those things is true. And neither will benefit a player driven approach.

But... that's not to say that the GM is free from crafting any details or from bringing things to bear. I think just saying "there's tons of things out there, go and adventure" is too broad. You need to bring some specific things to bear... situations that demand attention.

There's a back and forth to it that breaks down if either party doesn't bring it.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, I think the one common thread we're seeing amongst the folks posting about success of player-driven campaigns is that they all seem to involve player contribution to the setting. This may be by way of formal prompts as part of character creation or it may be the product of a GM who just asks players questions about their characters and then uses the answers.

I think one of the main things to consider in this regard is to not commit to too much about the setting before involving the players. I think there's a lot of advice about GMing online and through other sources that says you need to have a whole world created, or if not a whole world, then an incredibly detailed starting area. And neither of those things is true. And neither will benefit a player driven approach.

But... that's not to say that the GM is free from crafting any details or from bringing things to bear. I think just saying "there's tons of things out there, go and adventure" is too broad. You need to bring some specific things to bear... situations that demand attention.

There's a back and forth to it that breaks down if either party doesn't bring it.

I am not sure these things are connected. I have seen and read about west marches/hex crawl campaigns where the GM created the world intentionally and in great detail and then let the players loose on it. The players do not create anything -- only their characters' actions shape the world.

I am not saying you can't have a successful player driven game with player's having a hand in setting creation, but it can't be a necessity.

I think it really comes down to whether the players are the kind of players that will self motivate, or prefer to at least have the path illuminated for them.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Yeah, I think the one common thread we're seeing amongst the folks posting about success of player-driven campaigns is that they all seem to involve player contribution to the setting. This may be by way of formal prompts as part of character creation or it may be the product of a GM who just asks players questions about their characters and then uses the answers.

I think one of the main things to consider in this regard is to not commit to too much about the setting before involving the players. I think there's a lot of advice about GMing online and through other sources that says you need to have a whole world created, or if not a whole world, then an incredibly detailed starting area. And neither of those things is true. And neither will benefit a player driven approach.

But... that's not to say that the GM is free from crafting any details or from bringing things to bear. I think just saying "there's tons of things out there, go and adventure" is too broad. You need to bring some specific things to bear... situations that demand attention.

There's a back and forth to it that breaks down if either party doesn't bring it.

I'm not sure about the amount of detail needed. I have ran a couple super successful player driven Vampire games, and they are set in a world that has a strangely high amount of detail.

More serious though, I think you can have a fairly detailed world as long as the players have a hand in creating PC ties and the "initial situation" that kicks off the game. It also helps if the GM is willing to modify setting details to coincide with what the players are interested in doing. Which I think happens fairly organically considering how many internet memes I see about how players will always befriend the throwaway NPC with no name, and the importance of allowing players to do that.

I am not sure these things are connected. I have seen and read about west marches/hex crawl campaigns where the GM created the world intentionally and in great detail and then let the players loose on it. The players do not create anything -- only their characters' actions shape the world.

I am not saying you can't have a successful player driven game with player's having a hand in setting creation, but it can't be a necessity.

I think it really comes down to whether the players are the kind of players that will self motivate, or prefer to at least have the path illuminated for them.

Well, having hyper-proactive players eliminates the need for most procedures the GM may need to implement to encourage a player driven environment. I'll be honest, in the early early days I didn't run player driven games per se, just improvised ones. It was my players that changed the way I ran games during a very memorable AD&D 2e game in 90-91. After completing a quest to clear out a Keep that had been taken over by Goblins, they decided to maintain control of the Keep as a home base. Then they took the reins and began doing things like negotiating with nearby villages for supplies and hiring and training guards. I totally fell into a reactive stance as GM and they ran the show. After 15 levels and the official declaration of their new country, they decided to retire their PCs so we could start a campaign in the new Star Wars TTRPG I had gotten recently. After that, I kind of just let them keep running things. It was later in life, after I discovered Burning Wheel that I began purposefully including actual procedures for fostering player driven aspects to the game.

 

[zakael19]

I am not sure these things are connected. I have seen and read about west marches/hex crawl campaigns where the GM created the world intentionally and in great detail and then let the players loose on it. The players do not create anything -- only their characters' actions shape the world.

I am not saying you can't have a successful player driven game with player's having a hand in setting creation, but it can't be a necessity.

I think it really comes down to whether the players are the kind of players that will self motivate, or prefer to at least have the path illuminated for them.

Right, I think this ties back to my post a few pages ago. If what you're doing is basically pre-creating a big swathe of content for players to go out and venture into (that classic sandbox, west marches or not), that's definitely the like "classic" idea of player-driven. However, it's not really character driven which I think as a deliberate style of play gets highlighted by system and products more in recent developments.

As @zarionofarabel notes plenty of people did something like that for a long period of TTRPG history, but collaborative approaches to gaming where the focus is on getting player goals that are other then say "go get rich" or "I want to build a castle" and more narrative driven are I think less so.

So again, there's different ideas and methods to do "player driven" campaigns.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I am not sure these things are connected. I have seen and read about west marches/hex crawl campaigns where the GM created the world intentionally and in great detail and then let the players loose on it. The players do not create anything -- only their characters' actions shape the world.

I am not saying you can't have a successful player driven game with player's having a hand in setting creation, but it can't be a necessity.

In my experience, they are certainly connected. I don't think that makes it a necessity. One can have a player-driven game that is an otherwise very traditionally prepared RPG. But that approach does not benefit a player driven experience. I think involving the players in the setting creation... in establishing the world and their characters places in it... does benefit that experience.

One approach actively promotes player-driven gaming, the other does not.

I think it really comes down to whether the players are the kind of players that will self motivate, or prefer to at least have the path illuminated for them.

While I think the willingness to engage of the players is of course a factor... I think considering it the only factor... or that it's the factor that "it really comes down to" is a mistake. Doing so presupposes that players are either proactive or not, with no in between, and no methods that can be deployed to shift a player from one to the other.

In my experience, that's simply not true.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Right, I think this ties back to my post a few pages ago. If what you're doing is basically pre-creating a big swathe of content for players to go out and venture into (that classic sandbox, west marches or not), that's definitely the like "classic" idea of player-driven. However, it's not really character driven which I think as a deliberate style of play gets highlighted by system and products more in recent developments.

As @zarionofarabel notes plenty of people did something like that for a long period of TTRPG history, but collaborative approaches to gaming where the focus is on getting player goals that are other then say "go get rich" or "I want to build a castle" and more narrative driven are I think less so.

So again, there's different ideas and methods to do "player driven" campaigns.

That's a good point. I can definitely see the difference between the GM creating a mass of stuff for players to pick and choose from being different from the players themselves co-creating things for their PCs to interact with. I think maybe that's why so many people think the GM needs to do an overwhelming amount of prep to run a successful sandbox game.

Not sure how being an improv heavy emergent play focused GM puts me on that scale. I mean, I do add content to the narrative constantly, because, well, that's what GMs do. I just don't prep it beforehand.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I've successfully been doing player driven stuff, the secret sauce is that players level up by paying with treasure, and gather information on possible locations of more treasure doing anything. So at least when real life isn't interfering, they generally do take the initiative to move on to the next thing.