Why we like plot: Our Job as DMs

[Janx]

Can you see how a game might play out differently if you remove the expectations of crafting a story?

I think if you scroll back to my description of how I'd run RC's civil war in the story method, that we reach the same outcome and allowance for PC choice.

Just as you are "bumfuzzled" as to why I don't get how your sandbox work, I'm reading your posts about what I'm saying and confused as to why we're disagreeing.


What's frustrating for me, is some number of people hop on this thread and see the words "plot" or "story", and ignore where we talk about getting player feedback, buy-in, and being flexible for player choices and assume we're running a railroad from hell.

As RC noted, my explanation of the civil war story-style have sandbox elements.

My whole point has been, use story elements to make the game turn into a story. If you run a sandbox the wrong way, you get a crappy game. if you run it the right way by tying things together, you get a good game. That tying of things together is story elements.

The same way that if I take a rigid story, I have a bad game. If I apply sandbox elements, I get a good game.

We're approaching the running of a game with 2 different primary methods (sandbox or plot) and using techniques from the other method to get a hybrid. The hybrid is what really matters.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In RCFG, I used the following definitions:

Adventure: Any series of encounters that forms a distinct arc within a campaign. An adventure could be attempting any goal that the players decide upon, from generally exploring a ruin to getting revenge on an enemy to rescuing the Duke from His enemies.

Campaign: A series of play sessions and/or adventures, linked by common characters, a common milieu, and/or an interlinked thematic or plot component.

Milieu: The overarching setting in which a series of game sessions takes place, including all of its locations, Powers, NPCs, monsters, and so on.

Plot: The machinations of a character within the milieu. Both player characters and non-player characters can engineer plots within the game, which often then serve as hooks for adventures. Note that this is different than the plot of a novel, as the outcome is not predetermined.

Story: What happens at the game table, only known or told after the events have occurred. It is not the Game Master’s job in RCFG to plan a story that the player characters are intended to follow, per se. Rather, the Game Master sets up situations and plots which the player characters may attempt to interact with in whatever way they like.

Most of these apply to sandbox and more linear games alike, IMHO. The end of the last definition, of course, differs.


RC

 

[The Shaman]

I haven't noticed it as a generational tie, just personal taste.

Out of curiosity, when did you start gaming?

 

[The Shaman]

What's frustrating for me, is some number of people hop on this thread and see the words "plot" or "story", and ignore where we talk about getting player feedback, buy-in, and being flexible for player choices and assume we're running a railroad from hell.

You wanna know why? Keep reading.

My whole point has been, use story elements to make the game turn into a story. If you run a sandbox the wrong way, you get a crappy game. if you run it the right way by tying things together, you get a good game. That tying of things together is story elements.

That's why there's such a difference between our opinions, Janx. I couldn't agree less with what you wrote there.

If I wanted story elements, I'd be a writer, not a gamer.

 

[Hussar]

I gotta agree with Vyvayan Basterd here. "Roll up the plot wagon" is hardly a new thing. There's a reason that you have that intro text in pretty much every module ever written.

Even if the plot is as simple as "Go here and kill all the stuff that needs killin'", there are more than enough players out there who are perfectly happy with getting a not so subtle nudge in a given direction.

I've seen more than one group paralyzed by indecision when faced with choices. At any age.

 

[Hussar]

A player can have any goal he likes when he sits down to game. His goal can be to drink as much beer as humanly possible. However, that goal is not the goal of the game, and it matters not one whit whether his beer capacity is known or unknown when he sits down when determining whether or not he is playing a game while drinking beer.

See, this is where we disagree. You are claiming that the only goals that you as a player can have during a game are the goals outlined by the game itself in order to be playing any game. I agree that "How much beer can I drink while playing chess" isn't really a game of chess particularly. It is, however, IMO, still a game.

That's why I disagree with you RC. You are claiming that player goals are irrelavent to whether or not a group of people is actually playing a game. I might agree that it matters whether or not they are playing a specific game, where I disagree is that they are no longer playing any game at all.

To me, particularly as it pertains to an RPG, where player goals are absolutely key to the game, positing that only game goals can be used to determine whether or not you are playing a game at all is simply not true. An RPG, because of its open nature, and because of its story telling roots, can certainly be played as a framework for achieving player goals (not character goals, player goals mind you) that have little or nothing to do with the game being played.

A simple example might be the casual player. He's just there to have fun with his friends. He doesn't really care about the game, he's not into deep immersion and whatnot. He just wants to have some fun with his buddies for four hours. His interaction with the goals of the game is tenuous at best. The events in the game are not his focus at all. For him, the achievement of his goal is, "did I have a good time with my friends?".

Is he playing a game or not? Because, if he's not, I've gotta say that there are many, many D&D gamers who are not playing a game.

 

[The Shaman]

A simple example might be the casual player. He's just there to have fun with his friends. He doesn't really care about the game, he's not into deep immersion and whatnot. He just wants to have some fun with his buddies for four hours. His interaction with the goals of the game is tenuous at best. The events in the game are not his focus at all. For him, the achievement of his goal is, "did I have a good time with my friends?"

Yeah, let's make this guy the benchmark for planning and evaluating our gaming experiences. While we're at it, let's put the limbo stick between two second story windows so we can be sure to get everyone under it.

Anything less would be elitist.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, let's make this guy the benchmark for planning and evaluating our gaming experiences. While we're at it, let's put the limbo stick between two second story windows so we can be sure to get everyone under it.

Anything less would be elitist.

That's not the point though. I personally wouldn't want to play with this guy particularly. I tend to be a bit more immersive in my gaming. But, should we deliberatly exclude this guy as well? Where do you draw the line?

Or, to put it another way, if someone made an RPG to fit this guy's playstyle, would that be a negative thing? To me, something like RISUS is right up this guy's alley. As would a number of very rules light games.

Does that mean that someone who isn't into a particular play style should be considered to not even be playing?

 

[Ariosto]

Not caught up yet, but:

Based on that, what seems to not be getting through to some of you, is that when the party has CHOSEN to race to ThereVille to stop the villain, they are locked in. Not by chains or DM fiat, but by virtue of the priority of their chosen goal.

That's cool, but ... don't you play for, like, a while? And don't players sometimes choose objectives that don't lock them in 24 - 7 - 52 - 80-to-life? Or is it really "not just an adventure, it's a job"?

If that's what you all prefer, then fine and dandy. I think a lot of us (at least of a certain vintage) tend to have more picaresque adventures. Conan, Fafhrd and Mouser, etc. -- even Elric, who really was on hot rails along with his whole world -- wandered and wondered and plundered from one fortune or folly to another. The D&D game has always seemed to me mainly set up for that in spades.

 

[Ariosto]

I find it equally mindboggling that an "infinite" number of adventure-worthy events are occurring in Sandbox World.

There's plenty of room between "infinite" and just 3 or 4!

Of course, it's plenty easy to chop down possibilities and lay rails. All it takes is lack of imagination.

Only four possible reasons to go to Giant Land? Only five possible ways to get there? That would be 20 adventures already, and I could think of more.

The beauty of it is that I don't have to! The players are likely to think of things I never would have thunk.