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

[FrogReaver]

White Plume Mountain: the GM describes the pits, reveals - as appropriate to the players' declared actions - the lack of friction in the room, etc. The players describe how their PCs will cross the room. The module itself notes a possible solution (anchoring a rope) but also notes that players may come up with other solutions.

This is analogous to @AbdulAlhazred's example of defeating a pit trap using a method the GM didn't think of, and also - assuming I properly understood the example - of @I'm A Banana's example of sealing off the tunnel to stop the warlock sneaking in and draining the life-force of the knight.

Why is everyone at the table talking and thinking about pits, frictionless surfaces, tunnels, life-force-draining, etc? Because the GM introduced those story elements as the focus of play, and the players are responding to that.

Another perspective is that the players wanted to play white plume mountain and so their desire to play through that module (aka the players) is the real driving force of that fictional focus.

What I think is happening is that players focusing the fiction means for you a mid to mid-high level perspective around what the players are doing and what the DM is doing. When I look at it from the higher level perspective of players choosing the module then it's evident the players role in focusing that fiction. When I look at a lower level perspective I can see it again, the players focusing the fiction by choosing to help the knight and closing off the path to him or focusing on the particular traps in this area.

I'm just not sure why we should look at it from only your perspective. And if we are to, what are the general bounds of the perspective you want to discuss.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I’d have compared it more to mom’s kitchen.

Mom
‘It’s about meal time, Do you want pork chops, meatloaf, chicken????’

Me
‘What about spaghetti?’

But really all these analogies are probably counterproductive.

I'm still not stepping up to play either mommy or daddy for a bunch of thirty somethings rounding the last base to forty.

 

[FrogReaver]

OK. But the thing is, in some other game we might have ended up in the pitrap situation, because the players choose to play daring Indiana Jones style explorer who is a bit of an an trap expert, thus choosing to explore dangerous ruins, thus leading to deal with pit traps.

Yep. IMO the question that needs asked for all these examples that are being claimed it's DM driving the focus of play - why is the DM introducing these fictional elements? Most of the time that can ultimately be traced back to something the players chose.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think the confusion lies in what is meant by the options here. Like sure, the players of course can choose to do anything and the GM preps for that, but the player choices are still happening within the GM curated world, so in that sense their options are limited.

How so? I mean, by the larger trappings of the setting? Sure. I don't think anyone is saying that players have unlimited authority to do whatever they want. But that depends on a lot of things.

In my experience, when a GM runs a game like this, they're the kind of GMs who have left plenty of room for things to be added to the setting without it causing a major issue. I'm playing in a PBP here on the forums, run by @Manbearcat and the other players are @AbdulAlhazred and @Grendel_Khan. One of the things @Manbearcat asked us for was a short list of quests we'd like for our characters. One major quest and two minor ones.

My character is a kind of Batman-like vigilante character, so my quests are all going to be something suitable to that. Some criminals to track down. I selected a figure from within the setting as the focus of my major quest. He's a shady lord who seems connected to lots of crime in the area. My other quests will be similar, but I'll be creating them largely whole cloth... NPCs, factions, and so on.

As i said before. If players are forced to choose only A, B, or C then i would agree. But the truth is, they never are forced to only choose A, B or C. They can always say 'none of the above' and ask for additional choices or say 'none of the above' and make their own suggestion.
The problem seems to me to be the insistence that the choices are meant to be exhaustive rather than inspirational.

In my experience, as both player and GM, this is often not the case. Very often, the players are expected to engage with the GM's material. You don't have to look far to find plenty of examples of this. All of WotC's published adventures rely on this. Many GMs craft their own versions of this type of game.

I mean, I've played in these games plenty of times. I've run these games plenty of times. And there's nothing wrong with them. They produce a perfectly fun type of play.

And I'm saying that's always an option in every rpg ever. If the players don't choose to do that then it's because they were happy with one of the non-exhaustive options presented. And if so then I can't understand why that's not viewed as the player driving the focus of the fiction. They made the decision to go with it when they could have chosen nearly anything else.

So if a GM buys Tomb of Annihilation and reads through it enough to run it competently, and then in, say, session two, the players decide they're not interested in exploring the jungles of Chult to find the Tomb and try and solve the death curse plaguing the land... that GM is just going to shrug and say "oh, okay... what do you guys want to do?"

Now, I'm not saying that can't be possible... but I would say that it definitely is not going to be the common response. Some folks are going to be annoyed by the time, effort, and money they put into preparing that game only to have the players not engage. And rightfully so.

But maybe more importantly I view the game as a collaborative effort. Neither the player nor DM solely drives the focus of play. It takes both of them agreeing for the game to be played and to continue to be played.

So what examples do you have from play? What anecdotes can you share of players generating fiction in your games and how did it go?

You seem to almost be challenging the premise while also claiming that it's true for you or even for every game.

 

[pemerton]

I see. So it is not about player generated fiction as I understood it, it is about the game being player driven, a topic we've discussed many a time. I don't understand why you needed to confusingly rename it.

I am talking about the fiction, as in, the many thousands of words that are produced during the hours of play that make up a session or two (or three, or . . .) of a group of people playing a RPG.

Those words are about something: there are people, and places, and concerns, and hopes, and reasons, and successes and failures, and so on and so on. All the sort of stuff that is found in any other fictional work too.

Who generates that aspect of the fiction, that topic of focus? It can be generated by the GM, perhaps mediating some other person's work: I've given WPM as an example from my own AD&D play.

It can be generated by the players, although - at least in a typical/mainstream RPG authority structure - the GM will be picking up at least some of what they have generated and presenting it back to them in the context of opposition or opportunity or other element of an imagined situation that will make play happen.

I've given an example of this latter possibility from my own 4e D&D play.

I am trying to get what is actually meant by this "player generated quest."

So, in the OP I pointed to the 4e quest system as one device for making player-generated fiction as to what is the focus of the action a meaningful feature of play.

I'm not all that interested in trying to mark out some boundaries as to what would count as a player-designed quest. Given that no rule of 4e turns on that, why would we worry? Maybe at some table, players enjoy specifying quests in terms of options the GM has expressly or implicitly presented to them, while other tables are closer to what I presented with my Soul Abattoir example.

I'm interested in player-generated fiction, across the three aspects/components that I identified in the OP.

 

[pemerton]

OK. But the thing is, in some other game we might have ended up in the pitrap situation, because the players choose to play daring Indiana Jones style explorer who is a bit of an an trap expert, thus choosing to explore dangerous ruins, thus leading to deal with pit traps.

Yes, OK?

Player-generation isn't about topics or subject-matter. It's about the process whereby the fiction is brought into "being". (I use scare quotes because the "being" of fiction is metaphysically contentious.)

Given how many D&D players there are in the world, there is probably some table that has played a Soul Abattoir episode where it was all GM-generated focus of the action.

I gave two examples from my own play. That's all. (And I do think my approach to WPM is probably a fairly typical one.)

 

[pemerton]

Another perspective is that the players wanted to play white plume mountain and so their desire to play through that module (aka the players) is the real driving force of that fictional focus.

Perhaps.

But in this thread the notion of "driving force" isn't one I've used. It's not raised in the OP, or my subsequent posts.

I'm talking about who generates the fiction. Including, in this context, the fiction pertaining to what the focus of the action is. That's all.

What I think is happening is that players focusing the fiction means for you a mid to mid-high level perspective around what the players are doing and what the DM is doing. When I look at it from the higher level perspective of players choosing the module then it's evident the players role in focusing that fiction. When I look at a lower level perspective I can see it again, the players focusing the fiction by choosing to help the knight and closing off the path to him or focusing on the particular traps in this area.

I'm just not sure why we should look at it from only your perspective.

No one has to do anything (in the ENW context, at least)!

But I think I've made it pretty clear what I'm talking about. I mean, if I say "Let's have a story" and then someone reads for an hour from JRRT's LotR; or if I say "Let's have a story" and then that same person regales me with a tale of their own creation; my wish has probably been satisfied either way. But one way involved the person creating a story, while the other didn't.

In RPGing play, a lot of words get said - many thousands of them in a typical session. They are about stuff. Who is creating that focus? Telling me that the players are getting what they wanted isn't addressing the question I'm asking at all.

 

[FrogReaver]

Perhaps.

But in this thread the notion of "driving force" isn't one I've used. It's not raised in the OP, or my subsequent posts.

The precise terminology shouldn't matter when my use of driving force is meant to be synonymous with the terminology you are using.

I'm talking about who generates the fiction.

I don't understand how this jives with this previous statement of yours (quoted below). Isn't who's generating the fiction synonymous with who's inventing a setting element?

I'm not talking about who invented a setting element.

 

[mamba]

From what I've said so far, I think it's an open possibility whether we're talking about the GM or the player generating the fiction that is the focus of play. It seems to me to depend on what happens next at the table. If the GM uses the kidnapping of the mentor as the hook to have the players play through an adventure the GM has designed - say, some variant of the slave lords or similar scenario involving multiple sessions of play in which the PCs, piece by piece, dismantle and defeat an evil organisation - and the players' decision-making is predominantly tactical or instrumental decisions about how to do that, I wouldn't say there is a lot of player-generated fiction in respect of the focus of play.

On the other hand, if the kidnapping of the mentor leads into a series of situations in which the player's decision-making does contain a significant element of making decisions about stuff the players have flagged or otherwise rendered salient - eg their are choices about alliance with or opposition to other NPCs with meaningful relationships to the PCs (as established via flags and/or prior play) - and the status of the mentor and the powerful enemies and how these relate to the PC are all front-and-centre not just as hooks but as the actual subject-matter of play and decision-making as events unfold, then there probably is quite a bit of player-generated fiction in respect of the focus of play.

So if you had chosen a module that has factions and the other things you mentioned rather than the Slave Lords (not familiar with it, I assume it lacks that), then that would have been player driven.

 

[FrogReaver]

In RPGing play, a lot of words get said - many thousands of them in a typical session. They are about stuff. Who is creating that focus? Telling me that the players are getting what they wanted isn't addressing the question I'm asking at all.

I don't see how it isn't. Players ask for game to be focused on White Plume Mountain from the module. The DM gives that to them. The players created the focus of white plume mountain (someone else authored the module, the DM ran it). In this scenario, do you really believe the DM created the focus on White Plume Mountain?