D&D General Player-generated fiction in D&D

[KYRON45]

Is there anything whatsoever? Possibly. I don't think there's very much to it though.

This would be like saying, "Is there anything to the thought that when we categorize things like Italian, Basque, Provençal, etc., that we are pigeonholing ourselves to eat a 'certain way'?" That is: Yes! The whole point of having a defined cuisine is so that you can produce dishes with a particular flavor, style, and set of ingredients with relative consistency, up to the limits of one's cooking skills. But the fact that we have definitions for these dishes and cuisines is not a straitjacket. It is a useful tool for talking about the flavors produced in our food. Treating food as though it were all one massive melange would be less useful. Are the categories artificial? Yes, certainly, they're things humans decided to create. Do people cross those boundaries? Sometimes! That's where fusion cuisine comes from, and where interesting new dishes can be born--pad thai was developed in the 20th century and couldn't exist without foods from both Asia and the Americas.

RPG terms like the ones you scorn are very similar. They tell us information about what one's interest is in playing, or what experience the game (be it a campaign, a system, or something else) offers. They are artificial, as most human categorization systems are artificial, but just because they're artificial doesn't mean they're useless or harmful. It means that we should keep in mind that they were invented for some reason, and we should try to know what that reason is and why. Chesterton's Fence and such.

I have no scorn, hatred for or any other divisive response that can be applied to my point of view.

I welcome my players, I play the game and if we’re very lucky we have a good time.

I don’t apply labels to any of it.

 

[Umbran]

and if you are so precious about Your game

Mod Note
If your point is so weak that you have to make personal aspersions in order to get traction, maybe your should reconsider how valid the point is.

And, if you don't need to be insulting, but choose to anyway, it is time for you to leave the discussion.

Be better.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have no scorn, hatred for or any other divisive response that can be applied to my point of view.

I welcome my players, I play the game and if we’re very lucky we have a good time.

I don’t apply labels to any of it.

Phrases like "(terms i have never and will never use outside of this forum)" are scornful. Whether you intend them to be or not, you are openly saying, "These terms shouldn't be used to talk to others about things."

 

[KYRON45]

Phrases like "(terms i have never and will never use outside of this forum)" are scornful. Whether you intend them to be or not, you are openly saying, "These terms shouldn't be used to talk to others about things."

These are terms I don’t use and I’ve never heard any casual gamer use. But thanks for telling me what I meant; that never gets old.

You can use any terms you like.

 

[Clint_L]

Do they? Because quite frequently character needs and wants are paper thin and pretty meaningless. I think the group generally needs goals, but for example the goal of the Curse of Strahd campaign was to get out of Ravenloft. Now my PC had their own personality and approach, but they never really mattered given the nature of the campaign.

It's fine if you have people who have strong motivations and goals, but for a lot of people they just want to relax, have fun, roll some dice. Different strokes for different folks.

Board games are fun. I love a good board game, especially one with strong story elements, like Eldritch Horror.

And D&D can be very fun if played more or less like a board game. If your game is about relaxing and rolling dice, and your character is basically a token that moves through encounters and fights battles to get rewards and level up, that is a totally fun and viable way to play. I question whether that is truly a role playing game, but if it's fun, it's fun.

 

[bloodtide]

Why should they hang around to help write yours?

For Fun.

Lots of benefits. I'm really not sure why they had to be spelled out; I had thought it was obvious that if someone gets to be a creator, not just a passive recipient, they're more invested.

This is true, but this also attracts the wrong sort of player.

A good player players the game.

A bad player alters game reality on a whim and demands the DM agree and always say "yes player". And you really don't want to game with that sort of person.

I want a game where I'm not making contributions to the world's fiction when I play because I don't want to. It would totally take me out of investing in my character's motivations and thought process.

This is a good point as letting the players generate stuff takes them right out of the fiction. The players are deeply immersed in the game....until one player says something silly "gosh sure wish there were dragonriding monk tortles. Now the DM has to drop everything and end the game to make ...oh, look dragonriding monk tortles right over there. And the player will be happy and dance around the table. Then do it for the rest of the players...and, oh look game is over.

 

[Vaalingrade]

For Fun.

Which is why some people want more narrative control on the player side.

Why is your 'novel' fun but theirs isn't?

 

[KYRON45]

For Fun.



This is true, but this also attracts the wrong sort of player.

A good player players the game.

A bad player alters game reality on a whim and demands the DM agree and always say "yes player". And you really don't want to game with that sort of person.


This is a good point as letting the players generate stuff takes them right out of the fiction. The players are deeply immersed in the game....until one player says something silly "gosh sure wish there were dragonriding monk tortles. Now the DM has to drop everything and end the game to make ...oh, look dragonriding monk tortles right over there. And the player will be happy and dance around the table. Then do it for the rest of the players...and, oh look game is over.

I guess every group goes through their Dragon Riding Monk Tortle phase.
For us it was a goblin biker gang.

 

[Oofta]

Board games are fun. I love a good board game, especially one with strong story elements, like Eldritch Horror.

And D&D can be very fun if played more or less like a board game. If your game is about relaxing and rolling dice, and your character is basically a token that moves through encounters and fights battles to get rewards and level up, that is a totally fun and viable way to play. I question whether that is truly a role playing game, but if it's fun, it's fun.

My games bear little resemblance to board games, I would have expected better from you to be honest. On the other hand, individual goals don't really mean much to the vast majority of people I've played with over decades. I know who my PC is. I know why they're an adventurer, their morale compass and what motivates them. But I don't typically have any specific desires, I certainly don't want to generate content outside of what my character says and does with a small amount of background lore and potentially some things I do in downtime.

Whether it's the intent or not, you are sounding quite condescending, that you know the one true way and everything else is a "board game". I have plenty of interesting and engaging stories and games on both sides of the DM's screen without "... the characters to have needs that are not always aligned with those wants".

There is no one true way to play the game. You want a more player narrative driven game, great. I'm glad that works for you. Don't belittle other types of play.

 

[BookTenTiger]

This is a good point as letting the players generate stuff takes them right out of the fiction. The players are deeply immersed in the game....until one player says something silly "gosh sure wish there were dragonriding monk tortles. Now the DM has to drop everything and end the game to make ...oh, look dragonriding monk tortles right over there. And the player will be happy and dance around the table. Then do it for the rest of the players...and, oh look game is over.

I've just got to say, in my 20+ years of playing D&D I've found the exact opposite to be true. The more I have players invest in creating the world, story ideas, NPCs, etc, the greater I've found player investment to be.

But that might just be my style as a DM!

I know that in my experience as a player if I'm not invited into the creative process of world building I check out really easily. Pretty much the opposite of what you said!