you're starting a new campaign: defining story arc or go with the flow?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I set up a sandbox with multiple possible story arcs. I see which one the players respond to, and those bad guys start advancing their plans. The player characters can do whatever they wish in response (including ignoring it).

 

[Flynn]

I've started both ways, and to be honest, I have more fun as a GM if I start with an over-arching story plot that unfolds over the course of numerous adventures, instead of trying to run things piecemeal. It gives me a longterm interest in the campaign.

The players, I think, like it the other way, because of the perception that an overarching story plot must mean that there's no other options for character action or development. I'm still trying to find a good balance or approach that helps me keep my interest in the campaign while helping the players feel that there are many paths that still lay open for them.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Moleculo]

I think the best term for my style is the Living Sandbox. There is an over arching plot, but that may change based on the character's interactions with the world.

For example, in my most recent campaign, I chose to have it take place over 10 years. I decided what events would occur when, and the consequences of players not interacting with them. They're given a lot of time to make their own sand castles so to say, but at the same time there is a price for remaining idle or wasting time. So, for example, if they players don't intercede in the conflict between Dwarven kingdom who have been driven to the surface by Deep Dwarves and the Human kingdom mining the mountain, a war may break out. Or maybe a competing band of knights mediates the conflict in their stead and are showered with wealth.

Giving the players the opportunity to make choices that affect the world drive my game, however that doesn't mean those untouched plots and hooks don't keep marching on (to bite them in the ass later! Maybe you should have dealt with Barran Bloodworthy and his Bloodthirsty Brigade when they were a band and not a small army. ).

 

[Umbran]

when starting a new campaign, regardless of the setting or ruleset your are using, do you prefer to base your campaign on one story-arc that will develop throughout the course of the campaign or just tie a series of unrelated adventurers together and let the campaign develop on its own?

Yes

I have found that, if one does not over-specify at the start, most of the time one can slide seemingly unrelated adventures into a story arc. The trick is to not write yourself into a corner too early.

I usually start with a few ideas of things that I am downright sure will occur and/or are going on in the campaign world. These are usually designed to have plausible trickle-down into most facets of society in some way or another. I then run a few things that contain potential hooks into some of the core events, and see which ones the party's interested in. I then weave bottom-up and top-down, and they meet in the middle. The end result is being able to start a campaign in an episodic fashion, but resulting in a campaign that looks like a story-arc after the fact.

To take it one step further, does the campaign style, setting, or ruleset you use determine the scope of the adventures or story arc?

Most certainly. Different settings and systems and styles are good for different types of stories.

 

[delericho]

Just wanted to take an informal poll: when starting a new campaign, regardless of the setting or ruleset your are using, do you prefer to base your campaign on one story-arc that will develop throughout the course of the campaign or just tie a series of unrelated adventurers together and let the campaign develop on its own?

A bit of both. I will always start the campaign with a roughly drawn-up story arc or two that will help define the theme of the campaign... but if the players take the campaign in a different direction then I'll run with that. If I have to discard some or all of the work I've done so far, that's fine: I have a folder of dead bits of campaigns that I gradually recycle.

To take it one step further, does the campaign style, setting, or ruleset you use determine the scope of the adventures or story arc?

No, the opposite. The scope of the campaign and the nebulous details of the story arc help define the setting, style and house rules of the campaign.

 

[Aeric]

I usually start with a number of short, unrelated adventures to get a feel for the characters and how they interact. Once I am convinced that the game is a keeper, then I will probably introduce the overarching plotline. If not, I will save the idea for another game later on down the road. That way, I can bring in players from the failed game and not worry about them knowing stuff ahead of time.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I am with Aeric.. my preference is a solid, known campaign setting that initially have unrelated adventure hooks in the local areas. As the characters grow and pursue a prefered plot line, that line gets infused with a deeper storyline and eventually becomes the over arching plotline. This approach requires a higher level of player involvment in the campaign and story, but results in a much more satisfying {for all involved} game.

Failing that involvement, my fallback is to use a published story arc, with the understanding that my players will buy into the railroad and follow the arc instead of gallavanting off on thier own. Occasoinally results in players losing interest in the plot and wandering off...

Historically I have had few of the former and many of the latter.. happen to be running a story arc presently

{altho I will say its probably the best open story arc I have seen and the players have a number of options within the main track of the adventures... they still have to buy into the basic arc tho.... or suffer the wrath of a DM whose pocket-book is a bit lighter now
- We are on adventure #2 and I just purchased #6 in print...}

 

[RFisher]

I've done story-arcs, & they were pretty successful, but I became unhappy with them.

I've tried pure sandbox. I think I still like the concept, but I wasn't really satisfied with that either.

So, these days I'm tending to aim for a middle ground. I don't want to develop a full story-arc, but I do develop something that the PCs are likely going to have to deal with. It's more the antogonists, their plans, & their organization. There's a potential story, but the actual plot depends upon what the PCs do. I may know the story that would happen if the PCs did nothing, but I don't know where it's going to go once the PCs get involved.

 

[Stormborn]

I have found it easier to run games in which there is a single story-arc with occasional sidequests and random adventures (mainly for the purposes of keeping the PCs at the level they need to be to face the next section of the metaplot), which may evolve into serial single story arcs that make up a longer campaign. For example, we might start off with a story arc revolving around undead that lasts for 4 to 8 levels then the PCs become interested in defeating a demonic cult and that goes on for another few levels, etc. In some ways this is simply a longer way of playing "random adventures" but its more like "random mini-campaigns" where there is longer term investment in a single plot, NPCs, etc. It is neither setting nor rules that make that so, its the group of people I play with. Generally not "beer and pretzels" kind of players who just want an evening doing whatever random thing seems to be happening, instead they like things heavy on "story" and "character." I also find that they prefer some degree of direction from the DM, so that instead of saying "Here are some rumors you have heard, how do you respond?" they hear "You must defeat the Devil Lich before the Solctice or he will summon his evil master into this world. What are you going to do next to defeat his agents and find out the details of his plan?"

 

[SteelDraco]

It mostly depends on the game. In D&D, I tend to have one over-arcing campaign plot, with PCs having subplots that tie into the main plot. Not all PCs have these, though - some PCs don't want to bother with having subplots of their own, I've noticed, so I don't try and force these things on people who aren't interested. Other characters develop into a subplot on their own, in the course of the game. Most adventures will have something to do with this main plot, with very few that are purely extraneous to the central element.

For other games, I tend to be more episodic, with elements occasionally tying into a main plot. This is how I did it in Deadlands or my historical fantasy game. They'd occasionally get pieces of the larger puzzle from a side element of whatever their main focus was on, and as the game progressed, they started to get suspicions of what was going on. Respectively, those plots were "Somebody's trying to open a portal to turn Deadwood into a Deadland", and "The British military is run by demonologists - now what?"