WotC's Nathan Stewart: "Story, Story, Story"; and IS D&D a Tabletop Game?

Forbes spoke to WotC's Brand Director & Executive Producer for Dungeons & Dragons, who talked about the 5th Edition launch and his vision for D&D's future. The interview is fairly interesting - it confirms or repeats some information we already know, and also delves a little into the topic of D&D as a wider brand, rather than as a tabletop roleplaying game.

In the interview, he reiterates previous statements that this is the biggest D&D launch ever, in terms of both money and units sold.

[lq]We are story, story, story. The story drives everything.[/lq]

He repeats WoTC's emphasis on storylines, confirming the 1-2 stories per year philosphy. "We are story, story, story. The story drives everything. The need for new rules, the new races, new classes is just based on what’s going to really make this adventure, this story, this kind kind of theme happen." He goes on to say that "We’re not interested in putting out more books for books’ sake... there’s zero plans for a Player’s Handbook 2 any time on the horizon."

As for settings, he confirms that "we’re going to stay in the Forgotten Realms for the foreseeable future." That'll disappoint some folks, I'm sure, but it is their biggest setting, commercially.

Stewart is not "a hundred percent comfortable" with the status of digital tools because he felt like "we took a great step backwards."

[lq]Dungeons and Dragons stopped being a tabletop game years or decades ago. [/lq]

His thoughts on D&D's identity are interesting, too. He mentions that "Dungeons and Dragons stopped being a tabletop game years or decades ago". I'm not sure what that means. His view for the future of the brand includes video games, movies, action figures, and more: "This is no secret for anyone here, but the big thing I want to see is just a triple-A RPG video game. I want to see Baldur’s Gate 3, I want to see a huge open-world RPG. I would love movies about Dungeons and Dragons, or better yet, serialized entertainment where we’re doing seasons of D&D stories and things like Forgotten Realms action figures… of course I’d love that, I’m the biggest geek there is. But at the end of the day, the game’s what we’re missing in the portfolio."

You can read the full interview here.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I have a setting and the players explore it while in character as part of the Roleplaying Game I run. What comes of it as a story happens in retrospect based on the decisions they make as players of characters.

I get what you mean here. Personally I think the issue is the word 'story' has become loaded and can also mean a few different things. I have no problem with using the word to describe 'stuff that happens in the game world', same with plot or whatever. Where it becomes an issue is when it goes from 'stuff that happens' to 'stuff that you must do'. Where the idea of story takes over. I also get why there is resistance to the term story, because there are folks who go from "stories must happen in RPGs" to "RPGs should be played/run toward telling a good story" and that leads to all kinds of problems if you are more interested in letting things unfold without any particular concern for the shape of the story, for themes, etc (i.e. if your primary interest is just playing a character or running as setting). I tend to fall in the camp that favors emphasizing the game and setting aspect of play, not the story. However I don't think WOTC means story in anything but the loosest sense of the word.

One problem I ran into initially when we started Bedrock Games was I was unaware of the different connotations this word has online. In my regular day to day gaming world, people might throw that term out casually but not really mean much beyond the setting events and the things their characters did. So we just talked about 'story' in our first rulebook like we do in our own game group. This really confused people because we had missed the online discussion about story, narrative mechanics, immersion, railroads, etc and I think a lot of folks thought we were in a particular camp when they read our sections on GMing.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I get the feeling that you and Hussar are using story in two completely different manners, because the way I'm seeing it, you both have a story.

Hussar is right that you can't have an RPG without a story, you can have life without a story. Real life is full of stories. So any "living world" is full of stories as well. The party might get involved in them, or create their own, or get involved in many of them. I think this is indirectly a railroad v. sandbox discussion. Sandboxes have stories and players have the choice to participate in them or not. Railroads have stories, but players do not have a choice in participating them.

Lets frame it this way: it's a question of what comes first, the story or the adventure? You say the adventure creates the story. Hussar says the story creates the adventure.

I think this hits on one of the issues you run into with the word story in online discussions. Story can mean "a sequence of events" but it can also mean "a tale or literary narrative, a novel". Really I think when most people invoke the word 'story' for RPGs they are just using it as an analogy for understanding what it is. That is fine. But what sometimes happens is people equivocate between several meanings of the word and that can lead to confusion or even to dishonest discussion (i.e. trying to tell people they are playing wrong because their game or style of play fails to address story in a meaningful way for example).

 

[Mark CMG]

I get what you mean here. Personally I think the issue is the word 'story' has become loaded and can also mean a few different things.

I think you're close. I think the term Roleplaying Game gets misused (or misapplied) even more often than "story."

 

[Mark CMG]

I get the feeling that you and Hussar are using story in two completely different manners, because the way I'm seeing it, you both have a story.

It may be he is describing his experience imprecisely. It may be what he calls story is actually story elements, which include setting, NPCs, etc., and that he is describing that as a story when it might be more precisely described as a potential-story-in-the-making. If what he actually is meaning is that he has a plotted story through which he guides player (and their character) scene by scene, then what he is describing is a very restrictive type of roleplaying game wherein the players have very little agency. Even so, despite how much of the story in such games is predetermined, if the game includes random aspects like dice, then the story can still only be told after the game has been played. If the players have control beyond their character over the non-PC story elements, then he is describing either a Storytelling Game or, at the least, an RPG with storytelling game elements. I'll leave it to him to clarify his own position.

It may be that when WotC says "Story, story, story" what they actually mean is also potential-story-in-the-making-because-we-supply-the-story-elements or it may mean they provide an almost fully-formed story through which they want GMs to guide their players. In the best case scenario, as far as those who want a Roleplaying Game are concerned, they are using a shorthand that imprecisely describes what they are actually packaging. I suspect they find they have a larger pool of GMs the more restrictive they present material because while more experienced GMs can ignore the guidance and pluck the story elements out to use as they wish, it is more difficult for less experienced GMs to take loose elements and ensure satisfying stories-in-retrospect without the tighter control within the material presented.

 

[Hussar]

Can we have this discussion without the snark?

Possibly. I just get a bit shirty when I'm told I'm not really playing a role playing game, or I'm playing a role playing game wrong because I recognize that it is impossible to play and RPG without a story.

I mean, good grief, I HAVE CMG Mountain modules on my hard drive right now. Guess what? They've got tons of story built right into them. Very cool stories. Excellent modules. But, watching Mark CMG try to rewrite history and exclude me from the hobby tends to strike a nerve.

 

[Hussar]

It may be he is describing his experience imprecisely. It may be what he calls story is actually story elements, which include setting, NPCs, etc., and that he is describing that as a story when it might be more precisely described as a potential-story-in-the-making. If what he actually is meaning is that he has a plotted story through which he guides player (and their character) scene by scene, then what he is describing is a very restrictive type of roleplaying game wherein the players have very little agency. Even so, despite how much of the story in such games is predetermined, if the game includes random aspects like dice, then the story can still only be told after the game has been played. If the players have control beyond their character over the non-PC story elements, then he is describing either a Storytelling Game or, at the least, an RPG with storytelling game elements. I'll leave it to him to clarify his own position.

It may be that when WotC says "Story, story, story" what they actually mean is also potential-story-in-the-making-because-we-supply-the-story-elements or it may mean they provide an almost fully-formed story through which they want GMs to guide their players. In the best case scenario, as far as those who want a Roleplaying Game are concerned, they are using a shorthand that imprecisely describes what they are actually packaging. I suspect they find they have a larger pool of GMs the more restrictive they present material because while more experienced GMs can ignore the guidance and pluck the story elements out to use as they wish, it is more difficult for less experienced GMs to take loose elements and ensure satisfying stories-in-retrospect without the tighter control within the material presented.

Wow. That's about as pedantic as you can get. You're actually going to differentiate here? Really? Look, when anyone says, "RPG's are made out of stories" they realise that the story is not 100% pre-scripted. Of course it isn't. For some reason, you seem not to be able to wrap your head around the idea that story means anything other than locked down, already scripted novel.

That's NOT what anyone means when they say RPG's are made of stories. But, if it makes you feel better, then we'll use the mouthful, but, more precise true, "potential-story-in-the-making".

Happy?

 

[Mark CMG]

(. . .) more precise true, "potential-story-in-the-making".

Thanks for clarifying what you meant. However, it does leave what WotC means a bit up in the air but that becomes more clear based on what they publish, how restrictive it is to free form roleplaying, and whether or not it is more setting-oriented or scene-by-scene designed stories through which they expect GMs to guide players and their characters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Lets frame it this way: it's a question of what comes first, the story or the adventure? You say the adventure creates the story. Hussar says the story creates the adventure.

Does the adventure lay the story, or hatch from it?

Are storytelling games all RPGs, but not all RPGs storytelling games?

 

[aramis erak]

I honestly wonder if this is about geography... I'm in the midwest... and it feels like D&D still has this stigma about it... I work at an IT consulting company and we discuss the latest episode of GoT or the new Daredevil show on Netflix at work... geek out about the new Star Wars trailer even have the a casual conversation about video games and no one bats an eye... but there is still the rare offhand joke about D&D that gets thrown about every so often... or the sense that it's something most played early in life but have left behind... perhaps it is the fact that it's looked at as "for kids" but so were videogames at one time. Personally I'm not sure why it's singled out in this way, but I've noticed it.

Alaska also still has a stigma... especially amongst the Fundamentalist Protestant Christians. There was a book burning targeting RPGs in the last 10 years. John W., owner of Boscos Comics and Games, notes that he'll happily sell and reorder any books they want to burn...

 

[Hussar]

Thanks for clarifying what you meant. However, it does leave what WotC means a bit up in the air but that becomes more clear based on what they publish, how restrictive it is to free form roleplaying, and whether or not it is more setting-oriented or scene-by-scene designed stories through which they expect GMs to guide players and their characters.

Well, we've got two pretty linear AP's and one sandbox AP. I'm not sure how many conclusions I'd want to draw from that.

Like I said, I think you're picking at some pretty tiny nits in order to present this issue. Good grief, most modules, certainly the majority, have been linear in nature. The number of linear modules out there far out number the number of open modules. So, I'm rather hard pressed to point fingers at WOTC for doing the exact same thing as everyone else has done for the past forty years or so.