Player Driven Plots (instead of Plot Driven Players)


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I see this all the time on the boards, GMs who have this expectation that players should 'step in line' and 'play by the script' and find myself wondering...

Where are the other GMs who do away with the concept of a script entirely, and play improv-style along with their players?

I can't be the only one on these boards.


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It depends on the group. When I GM, I like to give basic ideas and opportunities and have the players pick where they want to go. Another GM I know likes a lot more linear game where things should be done in a certain order.

For my current group, they actually dislike the wide-open world model where they can go where ever they want. They want something much more targeted so they can feel like they are making progress on the main purpose of the campaign.

I've never played any of the APs, but from my understanding they are fairly linear as well. And many people seem to like them a lot.

As such, there's no best way to handle campaigns, its just whatever works for the group.

I think in some of these situations our own hangups come with us into the threads. When we see words like "script" we instantly assume terrible GM that is taking his players on the rails, and the players being miserable and trying to get off the rails. That isn't always the case.


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It really depends on what the DM is running. You could blame APs and modules for making DMs complacent, but I don't think that's the whole story.

I think there's several things at play.

1) Improvising isn't easy and in someways is fictional. Improvising isn't usually just pulling amazing creative things out of the sky. It's consciously and unconsciously pulling things from past experiences and adapting them to your current situation. This usually means "improvising" gets better with time when you've had more experience dealing with curves and dealt with solutions to it many times.

2) This means if you aren't great at improvising you can either stand there drooling when you don't know what to do, or heavily prep so you make sure you never get stuck. Many DMs prep a LOT, especially newer DMs so that you don't go into panic mode and the game comes to a screeching halt one hour in when you've run out of written material or someone did something you don't have things written for.

3) This means that many DMs often way over prep. To have that safety net so that they don't go into panic mode they write a lot of material out and plan pretty far ahead. They then get attached to this idea and they spent so much time and effort on this cool story they damn sure are going to use it.

Thus when someone goes off the rails the DM A) doesn't like he isn't going to get to use his cool material and B) doesn't want to go into panic mode where he isn't sure how to suddenly make stuff up for another 2 hours when the players go a different route.

Personally in my campaign I'm only planning one or two sessions ahead and rough ideas. I have no idea what the Players are going to do so I don't want to have a bunch of stuff done for a direction if they choose to go a totally different way.


I find when running PF while I do some stuff off the cuff and leave multiple choices open to the players I am less comfortable winging it than I am with a more rules-lite system (Savage Worlds, CoC etc).

However a good DM should provide a platform for the players (e.g. setting, genre, general premise) and good players respond to that platform. Improv, group storytelling is a two way street. In PF I generally run APs that are considerably tweaked as we go along responding to player goals/interests but I still have something to fall back on to keep the ball rolling and the group hopefully interested.


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I am happy to wing it, but reality is reality. I don't just let Level 1 character just do whatever they want in a world constrict by powerful forces; because that's real. They are social beings, and actions have consequences. They are free to approach these challenges however they may, but if the party ignores a summons from a powerful lord and spends all of its time gambling, there will be realistic results. The GM creates the world, there may be a narrative underlying it, but it should always be a natural result of the world as created.


Me......if the players bring the awesome, then go with the flow

The Exchange

A lot of the focus on "players follow plot" comes from the fact that modules, APs and so forth are all of this model. This is understandable - the guys at Paizo don't know your players or what kind of characters they'll play. (Kingmaker was a nice exception, largely letting the players drive.)

In my campaigns, when players are first starting out as PCs I provide a solid plotline that they can follow. In general they need one more after the first one peters out: by that time I've usually inserted a few tantalizing leads and potential threads, and followed up on any PC whose character background includes a story. By that point their grasp of their characters is strong & they're ready to drive most of the action.

A largely-character-driven campaign can be done. But it requires a bit more finesse, prep time, and willingness to be spontaneous - not to mention players who are self-motivated enough to pick up the ball. You can see why it's rarer.


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OTOH, there's nothing wrong with having the main plot of the game set up by the GM. "There is a major villain. He is plotting X. For various reasons, it's you poor slobs who are going to have to try to stop him."

It can work out quite well and leave the players a lot of freedom of choice. The basic spur to action exists, but the PCs don't have to be railroaded in how they deal with it and also have their own personal ambitions and goals along the way.

APs have to pretty railroaded because the PCs really have to get to the adventures in each book or there's little use in buying them. Even Kingmaker, in the end, took most groups to the same places to fight the enemies.

In a home-brewed game, even one with an overarching plot on the same scale as an AP, the GM is much more free to adapt to the PCs actions. The end game setting doesn't have to be written up until you know how the PCs are going to reach it.

All you really need to know up front is what the various NPCs are planning, how it will all work out if the PCs don't get involved and what hooks will bring them in.


I tend to only go full-improv mode when playing something fairly rules-light.

For PF, I'm either running an AP, or I'll go episodic mode and allow the characters enough leeway to choose a direction by the end of this session that'll influence what I prepare for the next session's game.


Do you create a world that is nothing but a perfectly open sandbox?

Do you honestly create no plot lines or story elements beforehand?

Do you have your players make up characters then say "there's the world, go"?


While I continue to ponder the other responses in this thread, I'll address yours immediately Simon.

Personally speaking, I only create the barest minimum of a world. My goal is to do as much creation as possible through spontaneous roleplay in collaboration with my players.

I honestly create zero plot lines or story elements beforehand, except in direct collaboration with players as relates to their characters backstory/goals/themes.

I collaborate with my players during their character creation and seek their input into the world, then say 'go' and try to support/encourage them to seek their own way while simultaneously roleplaying the world along with its independent actions and its reactions to the players.

The Exchange

Really? I'm more of the sort to have three or four evil plots going on when the players enter the story at all. Let 'em choose which villain to go after first based on the severity of the plot, its nearness to completion, and their personal stake or interest in it. ;)


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Where are the other GMs who do away with the concept of a script entirely, and play improv-style along with their players?

The first GM I ever had was an older GM who played older editions and liked to run everything on a railroad. The second one I had though did everything spontaneously, and its how I really liked things. I liked having choices and control over what happened and dealing with the crazy shenanigans and consequences I got into. That's how I like to run things, as much as I can.

That said, I think pathfinder sucks at spontaneousity and demands more planning than it should. The way it runs the adventuring day, magic items/treasure, monsters, and character creation all work against it. Luckily I can always pull up a DC on the fly and I learned to look through the books in a quick skim and say "that looks just fine!", with an occasional flub here and there.


So it sounds to me, and I may be incorrect here, that you're just making a Pathfinder version of the real world. There is no overall goal or plot to be solved, there's just a world to take part in. While that's fine if that's what your players want, I can't see how it lends itself to heroes being heroic. What happens when the action sprung from their back stories reaches its logical conclusion? How do you divide up the action when you're having all the players works towards only one player's goal?


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Simon Legrande wrote:
While that's fine if that's what your players want, I can't see how it lends itself to heroes being heroic.

I know it might be weird to hear, but you don't need a 'save the world' plot to be heroic or have fun. In fact its used so often it almost becomes cliché and loses its value, at least to me personally.

The Exchange

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MrSin wrote:
That said, I think pathfinder sucks at spontaneity and demands more planning than it should. The way it runs the adventuring day, magic items/treasure, monsters, and character creation all work against it.

I rarely agree with MrSin, but I do feel that the sheer mass of mechanics works against the open-world style. You can do it, but it adds more work. (I've found it handy to have 200+ NPCs of various levels already statted up & ready to go - just plug in a name and you're ready to go. Why, yes, it was a lot of work. Thanks for asking.)


MrSin wrote:
Simon Legrande wrote:
While that's fine if that's what your players want, I can't see how it lends itself to heroes being heroic.
I know it might be weird to hear, but you don't need a 'save the world' plot to be heroic or have fun. In fact its used so often it almost becomes cliché and loses its value, at least to me personally.

I've heard it enough that I wouldn't consider it weird to hear, though I do consider it weird to play. To me, the game is about playing heroic heroes. I know it isn't that for everyone though. It would be like playing Skyrim for 4 hours a day without ever completing a single quest. Sure it can be done, but I'd find it incredibly boring.


Simon Legrande wrote:

Do you create a world that is nothing but a perfectly open sandbox?

Do you honestly create no plot lines or story elements beforehand?

Do you have your players make up characters then say "there's the world, go"?

Yes, a lot of GMs do this. It bores me to tears.

At best, some of these GMs create agents who have behavioral algorithms and starting dispositions toward each other so that the GM knows how the neighboring monarch will react when a PC marches into her castle and demands to know where the treasure chests are.


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Eh, as a player my best writing happens when I have an initial idea to work with. It's really easy to get paralyzed by choices, especially when you have three other people you're cooperating with who are also trying to make choices. If there's a cohesive central goal to work towards at least at the start then you can get your open world when the players start making choices that seemed rational (or not so rational, depending) and your campaign completely spirals out of control.

For the record, improv acting usually has a subject you start with before anyone starts doing things.


A game can most definitely be too sandboxed that it feels like you're in a bad RPG video game. You know, like those games that you're walking from person to person, building to building for hours doing nothing and trying to find a clue of where the magic key is to move on. RPGs need some kind of narrative and hook, not just random locations and people and the players hoping they come across your clues and events you nestled in certain places.

The opposite of railroading != a fun game. You need to get hints and have events dropped on you to move a narrative forward. The "You're in a city. Go" game is probably worse than railroading because you can likely spend an entire game session accomplishing nothing or usually feeling like you aren't progressing toward anything. It's just a stream of meaningless jobs like you're a temp murder hobo employee.


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We keep central themes and GM-driven plots for the most part. That said, the players are welcome to drive individual plots, run amok in cities and do what they'd like. The world doesn't stop, the evil bad guys keep doing their things, and so on.

There are things for the players to do, or they can do what they please. It's up to them, really, but I don't go into some sort of full on improv acting class -- as Archnofiend rightly mentioned, most improv acting isn't just totally freeform.


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kyrt-ryder wrote:

I see this all the time on the boards, GMs who have this expectation that players should 'step in line' and 'play by the script' and find myself wondering...

Where are the other GMs who do away with the concept of a script entirely, and play improv-style along with their players?

I can't be the only one on these boards.

I'm not a fan of player-driven, as a player. That's because there's no such thing as a player-driver game, but a players-driven game. Far too often, you have different PCs heading in different directions, unless they all agreed to a common goal before the game even started. (To impose a common goal, have a good session 0.)

I'd rather have a railroad than try to compete with 3-6 other players for the DM's time.


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Kimera757 wrote:
I'd rather have a railroad than try to compete with 3-6 other players for the DM's time.

My 2 coppers. Groups work in various ways. Sometimes its like herding cats, other times everyone can agree to go do one thing at a time ("Lets do jeffs story first!"), and sometimes the GM dangles bait by merging everyone stories a bit "Hey! That artifact jeff wants is in the hand's of Joe's evil villain and the Dragon of the villain murdered Sarah's family!") and sometimes someone's really easygoing and in for the ride, enjoying another person's story and acting in it("Yeah, I'll go with your guys sure. My character is just in it for the adventure. Besides, you totally want a bard for this stuff!")

Your mileage may vary.


I run games like a lot of people here mentioned where the GM starts with a story and lets the players run with it. I have a sandbox of ideas, but few are fleshed out until needed. Like someone else said, I tend to only flesh things out 1 or 2 sessions ahead of time.

I spend a lot of time on my systems to keep my spontaneity to the plot. I have unnamed NPCs and Creatures ready to go. I have maps and terrain all qued up. If the PCs want to do something I wasn't expecting, I just have to work on NPC reactions. I can just drop the combat/setting portion into place in just a few minutes with little effort.


I normally do a dual approach.

I prepare some stuff (dungeons, encounters etc.) and then let the player decide what they want to do. Once they reached an "encounter spot" I take a prepared one and alter it a little bit.

Example:
My basic idea for a 1st level entry adventure was to get the millers children get abducted by kobolds. I prepared the dungeon, stats etc.
One of my players played a character who really hates street robbers, so I simply call the kobolds den a "Bandit hideout" and used the kobold stats (slightly change to get medium sized creatures) as "bandits" - my players never recognize that and were amazed how I predict what they will do.

Problem with this is, if you have players who know the monsters and if you get into the higher levels...
But it's still doable. :)

As a player I like both ways of playing and it depends really on the group which fits best.


It depends a lot on the players... I try to run as open worlds as possible, and often ask my players what they want.

Completing a scenario I don't throw the next adventure in the players face right away, but often find myself looking at blank faces when they wait. Once in a while though my players actually find goals for their chars...

Starting open campaigns I like to ask my players to make back grounds for their chars including at least 1 plot hook. Also I ask they add3 goals their chars have. 1within the next year, 1 within the next 10 years, and 1 before death (could be something like: have 1000 gp, become lieutenant in the city guard & redeem fathers name)

Having chars with personal goals make it a lot easier for me as a gm...


I tend to do some prep and run AP pretty loosely (sp?)

If the pc's come up with better ideas, plans,lots, npcs, then the mod suggest we will run with that. If they want to ignore an npc that I accommodate, especially the one who gets lost all the time! If they don't want an npcs to tag along, that's fine!

It is a team game, including g the GM. Don't like gms who get to big for their boots


I am interested in the 'how' of truly spontaneous games. More anecdotes, please! Do you make up dungeons, traps and encounters as you go along? Do players ever say, "Hey, I bet you only put that trap there because I didn't check for traps!"


In my experience it depends on the players. I have a bunch of players in my current game who all need to have some goal presented to them as a motivator. There's nothing wrong with that and I'm happy to do it, but in HS and college I had a group of gamers that were the polar opposite. They'd actively avoid whatever plot I had written and just explore to see what trouble they could get into.

Frankly I'm fine either way. If my players suddenly decide "bag this; we don't want to go after the evil kobold wizard. Let's wander into the unknown" I have enough random stuff and confidence in my ad lib skills to pull off SOME kind of adventure. If that happens, then I'll fill in the blanks and make connections in the plot after the fact.

Downie Fabric Softener: I think the "how" is just a matter of prepping lots of random material. Got 10 minutes? Think about a cool location you'd like to explore as an action hero. No, not as a player or a GM but if you yourself were in the body of an adventuring paladin or wizard. Got it? Now jot down some notes, maybe sketch out a quickie 2d map.

Now, what are some interesting monsters? What would be a fun monster/class combo? Take a boring monster and challenge yourself to re-skin it somehow: swap out one of its SLA's for another of the same level, advance it with a template or completely re-design it. Now you've got some fun villains.

Now amass a bunch of random proper nouns: people, place and thing names. You don't even need much or even any write up on them, just make some lists. After you've got all this pulled together, grab or make up some terrain generators. Personally I use stuff I hackneyed out of the 1e DMG decades ago.

So, when your players show up at the table you recap what they've done, lay out where they are and maybe throw out a couple suggestions. But, when one of the players says "I go talk to the blacksmith to get more info on that magic sword" you simply grab your lists and say (inert name here) the blacksmith tells you of (insert name here), the fabled magic sword. It's located in (roll random terrain generator; insert name for terrain generated). The exact location is hidden but it is suspected to be in this dungeon...

Randomness begins when the players and GM give themselves license to make stuff up. This is harder than it sounds. A lot of gamers enjoy rules, maps with solid lines, and well-scripted plots. As I've said, there's nothing wrong with these gamers. My whole group is like this. But if your players challenge you to just invent stuff on the spot you only need the willingness to pull stuff from your prep work and make the connections.

As far as running it when they actually get into encounters, well; that's what bestiaries are for. And if you've been caught without the bestiaries or stat blocks of any kind, wing it. Think about what the avg AC is for antagonists at that level, what some common abilities of PC classes for that CR, and some standard attacks. Fill in some round-about HPs and maybe just look up Fighter or Wizard saves for the villain's saving throws, and you're off to the races.

TL/DR: spontaneous gaming is a mindset shared by all participants at the table. The best friends of spontaneous GMs are tables, random generators and a hyper-active imagination. When all else fails, fake it.


I use both. I like to give the players and overall plot for them to sink their teeth into and give them a common goal etc. But I also run sessions with little or any preparation. I find this mix keeps things fresh and entertaining for me and my players.


Matthew Downie wrote:
I am interested in the 'how' of truly spontaneous games. More anecdotes, please! Do you make up dungeons, traps and encounters as you go along? Do players ever say, "Hey, I bet you only put that trap there because I didn't check for traps!"

A truly spontaneous game would be like what you do with children - you tell a short part of a story, then they get to add on to your story, then you add more, etc.

That doesn't work well in Pathfinder as Pathfinder is a rules heavy system. When I GM, I don't even follow half of the Pathfinder guidelines, and I still wouldn't be able to simply wing an entire adventure.

To me, a non-railroaded game is one where the GM creates many site-based adventures, and lets the PCs decide how they want to tackle it. In my current game, I had at one time four different locations that the PCs could have chosen to explore, and each one would provide them with something that would assist in their ultimate goal - even if it was simply treasure.

Telling the group that they have to go to the cave and then to the dungeon and then to the fortress is boring. Letting them know what adventuring locations are available and letting them pick is better. Then sprinkle in some event-based scenarios in between the site-based ones, and you have yourself a campaign.


The sometime problem with player-driven plots is that they're plots driven by players. Some groups very much enjoy being told a story, led around by the hand and simply playing the role assigned them by the DM.

Others are so aggressively independent that they'll flee in another direction even if the desert offers them an oasis, because clearly the sand leading there has railroad tracks beneath it.

Sandboxes work only when the DM constructs a cool one, and the players show imagination when playing in it.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

I generally prefer to run, and play in, more sandboxy games. I do like a little external structure to hang plot and motivations on, but it really only takes a little. Naturally, other primary actors in the world (like the villains) need to be doing their own things to propel the action, too.

That being said, I do enjoy playing APs. I mostly play APs nowadays for two reasons: one, they're very entertaining; and two, I don't have as much time to homebrew my own stuff. And of course, APs are generally more railroady.

I guess it's like Almond Joy: sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.


Pathfinder isn't the game I guess for total spontaneity....but you can roll with it still,

Many other games I play and run where 99% is made up on the fly


Matthew Downie wrote:
I am interested in the 'how' of truly spontaneous games. More anecdotes, please! Do you make up dungeons, traps and encounters as you go along? Do players ever say, "Hey, I bet you only put that trap there because I didn't check for traps!"

When I GM, more often than not, dungeons are the one thing that I mostly plan out meticulously. This is one of the primary reason that I don't like doing dungeon runs. Of course, "dungeon" is a pretty open word. Even a forest, a castle or an entire town can be a dungeon so long as it's set up properly.

As for how to do spontaneity: surprisingly, a lot of it is in the preparation. Specifically, a lot of it is in the players' preparation.

More often than not, I really want my players to come up with goal-oriented characters. I want their backstories to include long-term campaign goals and plenty of detail to work with. I never accept friendless orphans who are only in it for the money. Everyone has to have someone, whether it's a family member, a friend or even another PC. The more details and goals I get from a player, the more I feel like I can know what they'll want to do with the game. I have a standing social contract with the group that I'm not just going to kill off or threaten their "social links" just as a means of motivating them.

Once all of that is in order, I'' make up the basic framework of a pretty generic introductory adventure just to get the PCs together. Usually, by the end of that first adventure, I'll have baited the hooks with details from the backgrounds of at least two of the PCs. By the time the first couple of adventures are over, the entire party has their personal goals staked in following the adventure.

To go along with this, I let the party make up a lot of the setting detail. If the group arrives at a PC's hometown, that PC is the one who tells the group what it's like there. If one of the PCs finds a final letter from a mentor who died in their backstory, and it reveals the next place the party needs to go, that PC gets to decide where that is and the most important details about it. Essentially, whenever a detail about the setting or plot would only be important to one PC, I usually just let that player take the narrative reins. That way, the party gets to control where they're going next and they can pace the campaign to fit their own personal styles. It not only makes my job as GM easier, but it gives the party the opportunity to make the setting more fantastical by putting their personal touch onto it.

As for anecdotes, the best one that I can think of is from a 3.5 game I ran a few years back. The party rogue made a tiny note on her character sheet that said her eyes were two different colors, one golden brown and the other ruby red. I didn't think much of it at the time (given that heterochromia isn't that odd in a world of wizards and devils), until the group had a run-in with a cult venerating an ancient dragon (our group had a dragon-hunting ranger who was looking for the progenitor of a sorcerer who had cursed his family). Following this, the dragon's cultists continued to attack the group, at times seeming to be able to find them even when they took extra effort to stay hidden. When the group finally tracked down the cult's high priestess and prepared to put her to the sword, I told the rogue's player that the priestess was shocked by something that she noticed about the rogue that made her realize why the dragon was so adamant about hunting the party down. When I told the rogue's player that she could decide what the dragon found so special about her character, she told me that her ruby eye was actually a gem stolen from the dragon's hoard hundreds of years ago.

Immediately, the rogue returned to the assassin's guild that had raised her, demanding answers. Over the next few adventures, she learned that her synthetic eye was implanted when she was a baby by the guildmaster's sorcerer, that it allowed the dragon to occasionally peer through her eye, and that it allowed the rogue to sometimes see the dragon's dreams. All of these were plot points the rogue's player made up when prompted. Through this and a few other things (I won't go into details regarding the rest of the party. We're talking about the rogue here), the group uncovered and tracked down the weapon created specifically to kill the ancient dragon, and fighting it made a nice capstone adventure for the entire campaign.

The most important piece of advice I'd ever give to other GMs is that they're only human and humans make mistakes. If players are adamant to go off the rails, it's important to at least consider the possibility that the story you want them to play through is bad, and that whatever have in mind might be more fun than what you were trying to force on them. Give the players allowance to invent their own story seeds, plot twists and setting details, and they'll surprise you with how inventive they can be.


TheHairyAvenger wrote:
I use both. I like to give the players and overall plot for them to sink their teeth into and give them a common goal etc. But I also run sessions with little or any preparation. I find this mix keeps things fresh and entertaining for me and my players.

I wish more GMs were good at this -- myself included. Usually the moment I get turned off to a GM is the moment I realize they're just winging it, and badly. But a few times I've noticed a GM winging it and thriving. That GM's a keeper.


Some of the best advice I've seen on these boards is that good preparation makes things look spontaneous. Lincoln Hills' example of having 200 NPC statted seems a bit excessive, but having a list of a couple of dozen names, a few pre-statted NPCs of different classes and a couple of semi-planned, optional plot hooks means that you can give a lot of options while still having an idea where things will end up. It also gives you a backup plan for when they go off-piste.

If you come up with a plot involving a corrupt mayor and an undead cult for one town and they players manage to miss it, you can always pick it up again when they move to the next town, changing names and locations as needed.

I guess you can't get too hung up on the players going a certain way in a more open game, or take offense if they miss your more structured adventures. I really like Neurophage's story about improvising a link between a PC and the current quest, though this probably takes an involved and sensible player and a lack of special snowflakes.


blahpers wrote:
TheHairyAvenger wrote:
I use both. I like to give the players and overall plot for them to sink their teeth into and give them a common goal etc. But I also run sessions with little or any preparation. I find this mix keeps things fresh and entertaining for me and my players.
I wish more GMs were good at this -- myself included. Usually the moment I get turned off to a GM is the moment I realize they're just winging it, and badly. But a few times I've noticed a GM winging it and thriving. That GM's a keeper.

Ideally you don't notice them winging it.

Of course, ideally you also don't notice the railroad. :)


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I doubt I'd like Neurophage's approach. I'm not usually fond of taking narrative/setting control as a player. Details about my character's past and background that then get worked into the game are fine. Things the character would know.

But I prefer to play from an in-character perspective as much as possible. Making up plot details pulls me out of that and breaks the illusion that there's a real world that I'm playing in. In that example, it would have bothered me that the dragon's motivation was being made up after the fact. I want the NPCs, villainous or otherwise to have coherent personalities and motivations. I want a world that at least seems to have independent existence, not one that shapes itself to the player's whims.

That's illusion of course, but maintaining that illusion is important to my immersion. Too much and my disbelief is no longer suspended, but hung by the neck until dead.


thejeff wrote:

I doubt I'd like Neurophage's approach. I'm not usually fond of taking narrative/setting control as a player. Details about my character's past and background that then get worked into the game are fine. Things the character would know.

But I prefer to play from an in-character perspective as much as possible. Making up plot details pulls me out of that and breaks the illusion that there's a real world that I'm playing in. In that example, it would have bothered me that the dragon's motivation was being made up after the fact. I want the NPCs, villainous or otherwise to have coherent personalities and motivations. I want a world that at least seems to have independent existence, not one that shapes itself to the player's whims.

That's illusion of course, but maintaining that illusion is important to my immersion. Too much and my disbelief is no longer suspended, but hung by the neck until dead.

To each their own. I usually like to keep a good split between the party's narrative control and my narrative control, but I don't have a problem doing things the more traditional way for a player who prefers that. In that case, just having a rich background for a character is already a plot-point gold mine.

My approach is mostly about communication and trust. Even if a player doesn't want to assert narrative control over the game, I would hope that, if nothing else, my being willing to extend that trust to them would inspire them to feel even more confident giving that same trust back to me.


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kyrt-ryder wrote:


Where are the other GMs who do away with the concept of a script entirely, and play improv-style along with their players?

Drama

When the characters in a story act in opposition to the desires of the audience.

In RPG's the players are the audience and the characters, so drama is more difficult.
Mr. Fishy has run open ended improv games but the players have to do "stupid" things for it to work.

They have to care about the NPC's and worry about the innocence people that might get hurt.

GM: Orcs have raided this village the dead and dying litter the ground, broken dolls left to rot. The orc raiders path is marked by a bloody trail. Returning to their war camp staggered by the weight of stolen lives. They have taken the women and children for slaves and worse.

PC: Damn that sucks...I check to see if they missed anything.

GM: I hate you.

Player driven plots only work if the players are creative enough to drive a game. Most are not that is why they are players not GMs.

Mr. Fishy is a great plot driver Mr. Fishy does crazy stuff constantly.
Mr. Fishy does not like to kill women...a fact that has been used again Mr. Fishy. Alot. Every game. Even video games.


Mr.Fishy wrote:

In RPG's the players are the audience and the characters, so drama is more difficult.

They have to care about the NPC's and worry about the innocence people that might get hurt.

There have been a couple of threads on these boards about similar things recently. One was about how to make the players loathe an NPC villain, the other about what to do with an dead enemy's Animal Companion that the PCs had unknowingly befriended and adopted (They didn't know it belonged to the enemy, and it's not hostile). Ruthless opportunism can help these build your plots.

The adopted Animal Companion just screams "build it into their narrative until you need to make them care about something!", but allows all kinds of other ingame hints and emotional manipulation too. You could literally have an enemy kick the dog, thus making them hate that NPC.

*Edit* Gods I love TV Tropes


Very interesting discussion here people. It wasn’t until I tried GMing with a new group in person last year that I encountered the ‘players prefer to be fed adventures’ mindset to which it seems a healthy number of players subscribe. I regret not keeping up on this thread with timely replies to comments being discussed, but rather than produce some massive sprawling wall of quotes and replies, I’ll use this post to highlight my own gaming style and dedicate paragraphs here or there to replies started with a link to the post being addressed.

To start things off, however, I’m going to quote an introduction I offered players when starting a PbP campaign on these very boards (albeit a campaign I allowed to die due to IRL issues and a lack of personal willpower.)

Quote:

I'm an EXTREMELY spontaneous GM, I literally plan nothing ahead of time, instead relying on wit, insight, memory, and creativity to see me through. Everything that ever happens in game, from the people encountered, to the buildings visited, to the dangers faced, it all evolves in the moment.

I expect my players to contribute creatively, when they want to do something or when they get an impression about something I've described I want you guys to flesh it out with what you see in your mind, to help me bring it to life. And never ever ever withhold a question, the only bad question is one not asked.

@ Tormsskull In my personal campaigns, there is no ‘main purpose’ of the campaign until the characters create one. In many cases this may be constructed within their backstories, in other cases the backstories drive the characters towards certain pursuits which culminate in creating a ‘main purpose.’ Finally, there are some games where there never becomes a main purpose, because the players are more interested in playing a casual game wherein their characters follow the road wherever the current takes them. (I’ll note that this last class of campaign isn’t my favorite, but neither do I have a problem with it. Tends to lack a real sense of ‘closure’ but is pretty satisfying in the short term while it happens.)

@ MattR1986 while the specific points you make about the nature of improvisation (being drawn from experiences and adapted in the moment) are correct, I’d hardly call Improv itself fictional. One can train themselves to be better at Improv (and this is something I personally strive to do) but that doesn’t make spontaneous improvisation any less real.

I completely understand a GMs frustration when someone goes ‘off the rails,’ which is part of the reason I don’t use rails. I’d much rather create something cooperatively with my players than sit alone at home crafting something on my own.

@ Mr. Pitt naturally there are consequences, and as a GM I would certainly warn my players about the potential consequences of their actions (even if they succeed at them, which is no guarantee) but I would never deliberately stand in their way of trying if they were committed to the attempt. It would suck if they needed to make new characters right away (and if it were reasonable I’d prefer to use those events to spin the campaign in a new direction than get rid of the characters through death or something else), but sometimes that happens.

@ Lincoln Hills You’re certainly right on that point. Without motivated players invested in their characters, a character-driven campaign won’t work.

This is starting to stretch out longer than I intended, so I’ll call it quits here and address more when I get the chance.


I do it with other systems, but for me PF is still too prep-heavy for me to have all the time to be able to go total "improve" as you were. This is why I rely heavily on the PF AP and Module lines for running adventures, but with other systems I hardly use modules at all.


Simon Legrande wrote:

Do you create a world that is nothing but a perfectly open sandbox?

Do you honestly create no plot lines or story elements beforehand?

Do you have your players make up characters then say "there's the world, go"?

Did anyone remember playing Baldur's Gate 1? That computer game is my inspiration when I build my sandbox. You start in a relatively safe area and explore into a wide open world full of people with their own goals an motivations.

So in summary I create a region with a few distinct areas and a few characters of influence with plots in motion and let the players loose to interact. I pull a few ties from the back stories to have them end up inside of a plot or two and meet the characters of influence. And from there they decide who to help and who to hinder.

(let's not forget about saving the world, the man who calls himself the God King is growing his empire at exponential rates in the south and a warchief has gathered the fragmented tribes and is determined to rebuild the giant Kingdom of old in the north. But these are just Tavern rumors and not concerns of lowly mercenaries... Pet peeve: villager bumpkin is the only special snowflake that can defeat the reborn Dragon God Demon devil, and killing him is delegated to a cr 1 Mook...)

Silver Crusade

My players do not like open world sandboxes. At. All. I paraphrase from one of my players a ways back when we attempted something like a sandbox... "If you don't give us a hook to follow, how in the world are we supposed to play this game? If i wanted to make the plot, I'd be the GM. I want to feel like i'm in a really good story that advances at a regular pace. Without the world guiding me along, how can i respond to it? The world shouldn't respond to me, I'm nobody, but I should respond to the world and react to what's going on based on how I want to play this character. That's how it goes and to think that this world revolves around my character or this party even, amounts to hubris on all our parts. What we basically have in this sandbox campaign is five wanna be GMs fighting for control with the real GM and its making for a bad game."
Well the conversation basically went something like that anyway. Regardless, some players like to get drug around by their ears, and others revolt at the mere concept of a GM giving a hook and expecting them to follow it. My group needs to be led. And they like and expect it and would not play this game otherwise.


kyrt-ryder wrote:

Very interesting discussion here people. It wasn’t until I tried GMing with a new group in person last year that I encountered the ‘players prefer to be fed adventures’ mindset to which it seems a healthy number of players subscribe. I regret not keeping up on this thread with timely replies to comments being discussed, but rather than produce some massive sprawling wall of quotes and replies, I’ll use this post to highlight my own gaming style and dedicate paragraphs here or there to replies started with a link to the post being addressed.

To start things off, however, I’m going to quote an introduction I offered players when starting a PbP campaign on these very boards (albeit a campaign I allowed to die due to IRL issues and a lack of personal willpower.)

Quote:

I'm an EXTREMELY spontaneous GM, I literally plan nothing ahead of time, instead relying on wit, insight, memory, and creativity to see me through. Everything that ever happens in game, from the people encountered, to the buildings visited, to the dangers faced, it all evolves in the moment.

I expect my players to contribute creatively, when they want to do something or when they get an impression about something I've described I want you guys to flesh it out with what you see in your mind, to help me bring it to life. And never ever ever withhold a question, the only bad question is one not asked.

Has anyone actually said they have a "players prefer to be fed adventures" or anything like it? Or is it based on GMs complaining about their players, which might well reflect on their GM skills as much as their player's tastes?

Or just an insulting way to say "Not everybody plays like me."?

I've said I like games with an overarching plotline, generally an NPC, or group of NPCS or multiple conflicting groups of NPCs who have things planned that our characters will object to. That drags us into the game and adventure ensues.
Not a railroad. Not adventures being fed to us. We interact with the world and the NPCs and that changes their plans and the outcomes. We have to figure out what's actually going on, who the groups are and what they're trying to do and how to stop it. There's plenty of room for meaningful choice and decision.

I suspect I'd hate your style. There's nothing to figure out. No large mysteries to solve. Everything just gets invented as we go along. That doesn't mean it's bad, mind you. Just not my taste.
And I'll try not to come up with cute little phrases suggesting how bad people who like it are at gaming. Maybe that wasn't the intent, but it sure came across that way.


I need to apologize to any and all of you who found my comment regarding 'players who prefer to be fed adventures' to be insulting or offensive, that was not my intention at all.

It was simply a contrast between the type of campaign I prefer (wherein the players and GM cooperatively create the story) and the one I try to avoid wherein the GM preps 'adventures' which the players go along with.


kyrt-ryder wrote:

I need to apologize to any and all of you who found my comment regarding 'players who prefer to be fed adventures' to be insulting or offensive, that was not my intention at all.

It was simply a contrast between the type of campaign I prefer (wherein the players and GM cooperatively create the story) and the one I try to avoid wherein the GM preps 'adventures' which the players go along with.

That was a bit of overreaction that you caught the brunt of, but there's been a lot of not-quite-bashing of anything that isn't a sandbox in this thread and that phrasing pushed me off the edge.

A lot of implications, never quite stated, that the alternative is railroading or that people (both GMs and players) could and would run, play and like sandboxes if they were just clever and creative enough.

And "fed adventures" (or railroad, for that matter) is really a strawmanny way to describe the alternative to your improved sandbox style.


It's just the way I described it, I wasn't trying to be snide about it or anything Jeff.

I'll confess I'm not always the most courteous person out there, but I meant no harm. I'll pull a response out of the post I was working on and plug it here, since it addresses this a bit.

@Lincoln Hills that’s totally an option Lincoln, and I'm sure there are players who prefer it, but it strikes me as being an awfully lot of work. It sure beats putting the players on rails, but they are still on a road system with a limited number of options available to them. Driving a car on the roads is more flexible than riding a train (and likely a very good middle ground) but as both a player and GM I prefer the metaphorical use of a helicopter (or good old fashioned foot travel.)

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