When Player Driven Adventures Don't Pan Out

[zakael19]

Players adding to the fiction, especially setting, is not player-driven? I'm definitely listening.

It's not. And that was why I asked the question and have several other posts positing that player-driven is the same as simply playing with a good table. They are the same. Now, rulesets can ease player-driven or make it more difficult, but from the descriptions of player-driven from @RenleyRenfield and @Campbell, it is the same as playing a campaign of D&D with session zero and a character backstory. I have responded to both of them, which is how I came up with my initial take.

And thank you for Wuthering Heights example. Seemed like a cool session. The mechanics seem interesting, as does the storyline. I like the ghost, and in particular, the comments on the story about using it for a Vampire game. It seems like it would fit in well to that type of narrative.

Players can add color to the setting without having any measurable impact on where things go. Like taking a sheet of paper with an outline printed and filling it in. There's a difference between "collaborative world-building" and then active character-drive play imo. For instance, I do a lot of the former in my Thursday Daggerheart game, but the actual structure of how I'm designing scenarios is pretty classic "situations not plots" where the flow of narrative writ large is following from what I posited as premise & themes of the game.

I'm taking into account what the players said when they built their characters to add like, NPCs and situations, but they're not really driving where things go, yeah? Here in the city of Verella, they're going to resolve the Cultist activity. I left the like, how do you find them, and who do you approach and all that to them, but that's as you said fairly classic play.

Contrast above (GM fronted scenarios with space for players to make small scale decisions) with stuff @pemerton has talked about before in some 4e games, where the like themes of play directly follow forth from a character's priorities and background. A player making their character a paladin of Pelor with a goal of "I must overcome the darkness that's beset my order's former home" means that now we're going to play to find out "can the paladin overcome the darkness in their order's former home" and the GM is going to make some thoughts about what that might be, and then we'll figure out what similar priorities the other PCs might have that coincide.

I think that makes sense? Does it show the kinda difference in how character-driven play might be done vs GM fronted "situation not plot" play?

Edit: here's another more high level example. In Stonetop, the player set goals they'd like to try and accomplish. "Unlock this Arcana," or "find an Exceptional Engineer to build that Mill" or whatever. Proactive things they want to do within the space of the game. As the GM, I'm also called upon by the game to "make their lives not boring" and bring Threats into play as the game demands. For their goals, I offer ideas on how we might go about doing that ("ok, you want to find an Exceptional Engineer? I think Gordon's Delve would make the most sense there based on its mines. Do you want to like, plan an expedition and ask around or just send your Followers on a trading caravan?"), for the Threats I take what was established by the players as the themes and threads of the setting that they highlighted via Playbook choice and explicit session 0 desires and build forth directly.

 

[Scott Christian]

Players can add color to the setting without having any measurable impact on where things go. Like taking a sheet of paper with an outline printed and filling it in. There's a difference between "collaborative world-building" and then active character-drive play imo. For instance, I do a lot of the former in my Thursday Daggerheart game, but the actual structure of how I'm designing scenarios is pretty classic "situations not plots" where the flow of narrative writ large is following from what I posited as premise & themes of the game.

I'm taking into account what the players said when they built their characters to add like, NPCs and situations, but they're not really driving where things go, yeah? Here in the city of Verella, they're going to resolve the Cultist activity. I left the like, how do you find them, and who do you approach and all that to them, but that's as you said fairly classic play.

Contrast above (GM fronted scenarios with space for players to make small scale decisions) with stuff @pemerton has talked about before in some 4e games, where the like themes of play directly follow forth from a character's priorities and background. A player making their character a paladin of Pelor with a goal of "I must overcome the darkness that's beset my order's former home" means that now we're going to play to find out "can the paladin overcome the darkness in their order's former home" and the GM is going to make some thoughts about what that might be, and then we'll figure out what similar priorities the other PCs might have that coincide.

I think that makes sense? Does it show the kinda difference in how character-driven play might be done vs GM fronted "situation not plot" play?

Yes, it does. Thank you for the detailed explanation. I appreciate you taking the time to detail the difference.

 

[zakael19]

Yes, it does. Thank you for the detailed explanation. I appreciate you taking the time to detail the difference.

No totally, thinking through stuff like this helps me kind of evaluate my own games and how I’m running them differently for different tables!

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Then how is it different from any D&D campaign run by a decent or good DM? Even in the adventure paths I have played in, which last a good year, all the things you listed: milestones not dictated, being generally broad, GM inserts some for plot, being able to change, and allowing for buy-in, are present. They originate through a character's background and session zero. I've never really played in a group the past twenty-five years that didn't utilize this. The only thing different is it seems your players get to make up more of the fiction. Aside from that, the play seems identical as far as being player-driven.

Well, in some ways its not. If you see them as similar or same, then I don't have much more to add. My point was to merely debunk how milestones are limiting or scripted and whatnot. we good

Then how is it different from any D&D campaign run by a decent or good DM?

But I do want to comment on this you said ^ (this is all for me to expound on about me, not a commentary on you in any way). This is an aside but it is related to player driven because many modern design games which come with tools like milestones and moves - make player driven games succeed so well!

It reminds me of when I said "This is just training wheels for the GM or players!" And until I played the games for a while, saw them in action and saw what they were doing for real (not just over a one or few game stint) - it did feel like "a good GM will just be already doing this."

What you say here is very much how I felt when I first started using things like GM Principles, and playing games with true Success with Complications and game-fiat roll resolution and so on.

Except I never really used to play with good GMs. Most were abusive, authoritative, and demanding in the most petty and limiting ways of "this is my game" or "this is my world" , or "Well that's how I rule the roll". I still on rare occasion run into a less-than-fun or even not-supportive GM quite often...

It is these games like PBTA and Cortex, and tools like Milestones and GM Principles that seem to be the source of the very best GMs. The most fun I have is almost exclusively now in this systems, these games where the players drive and the GM facilitates.

I am sad to admit that I have not had a GM run a fun D&D/Pathfinder/GURPS/BRP game for me in over two decades.... they never are fan of the characters, they never take player driven goals into main plot, they never make rulings that support player narrative...

Again, this is just me and what I have seen that made any GM go from "meh" to "pretty darn good".