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

[Manbearcat]

The thing is, in my experience in practice it rarely is clear cut. The GM presents the world, with all sorts of details and events in it, some of them probably informed and inspired by character backstories. Then the players choose to focus on some aspect, and the GM generates more content related to that.

In my estimation, the appraisal process is less fraught than you're making it here.

Yes, it will entail developing first principles for analysis and yes, depending upon where play is in the maturation of its continuity there will be more or less disentangling of varying contributions (System, GM, Players), but its not some kind of inscrutable black box.

Whether you're evaluating at the level of the scene or at the level continuity-to-date, it can absolutely be done. Obviously, the former is less multivariate and therefore easier than the latter, but both can be done.

So here is an exchange I had recently with some friends, and I think its very operative to the discussion because it points at top-down agenda-based items and attendant analysis of how contributions shape play. I won't include the participants handles (none of them are contributors to this thread, by the way, but they are ENW contributors), but I will include myself. What do you think about the different pieces of this:

Poster 1: <Referring to their GMing of D&D 5e>...but it's also my responsibility not to upstage the PCs.​

​

Me: You know there is a contingent of folks who would read that and say something like: "Its not about upstaging the PCs. Its about living, breathing, world. If the characteristics that animate the setting and the motivating aspects of NPCs/Factions are typically or always featured in a way that indexes PCs, then the world becomes sterile and flat."​

​

That is what they would say and that is what they do say. They say:​

​

"If a GM or system uses setting primarily (or exclusively) as a means to frame conflicts and render consequences around player-espoused interests (which index their PC's novel, assertive dramatic needs), then the world is inherently sterile, flat...and, by way of sterility and flatness...dead...unimmersive."​

​

Therefore, the quiet part said out loud is:​

​

"At some level of frequency and/or magnitude, it is essential for setting to upstage PCs."​

​

Poster 2: Far far better for the player characters to feel sterile and flat.​

---

You and I have had lots of discussions on this board. Of the people that typically disagree with me (and I them), I would say that you and I have had probably the most productive and functional discussions. I feel like I have an idea on where you come from at this point.

My sense is that you (a) definitely do not agree that Poster 2's statement is downrange of what you see me write. Is that correct? If so, I would say that is an essential piece here.

More interesting to me thought is (b) what is your appraisal of this 5e GM's assertion at the top? Further, (c) what is your appraisal of what I have written in the above exchange, both my Steelmanning of folks' position above and then my derived conclusion at the bottom?

I think that is also an essential piece of this conversation.

 

[hawkeyefan]

And with this I think you and I are done for now.

I'm not sure what the issue is, but okay!

Honestly, just sharing an example of what you're talking about would probably be a lot more productive.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm not sure what the issue is, but okay!

Honestly, just sharing an example of what you're talking about would probably be a lot more productive.

The overall rudeness.

That seems pointlessly reductive.

…

It’s intentionally trying to squirm around the actual topic.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The overall rudeness.

I was simply being direct. It doesn't seem all that different from the things you've said to others in this thread. If you found it rude, that's unfortunate, but okay.

 

[Manbearcat]

Ok so here is something.

That game was/is cheekily titled A Monk, a Wizard, and a Swordmage Walk into a Fallcrest. Welp, one of the three players (the Swordmage player) exited stage left at that post linked above because the requirements of the game were beyond what they're able to commit to presently. The game pivots to a fair degree after that post.

Now there are two very different reasons why a game might survive contact with losing 1 of its 3 characters/players:

* One reasons (which is the reason here) is because (a) we easily vignette this character's dramatic needs either being resolved or its prominence exiting stage left and then (b) shift the focus of play to that of the dramatic needs of the remaining 2 characters/players where those things give rise to the trajectory and shape of play (and in this case, gain a 3rd character/player whose dramatic needs will feature prominently as well).

* The other reason a game might survive contact with losing 1 of its 3 characters/players? Its because the trajectory and shape of play is most prominently derived by non-player (and non-PC) inputs; setting and/or metaplot and/or villain as protagonist (the villain's dramatic needs have primacy) give rise to the overwhelming trajectory and shape of play.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So unless I've misunderstood, what this involves is the players declaring an action - We seal up the secret passage - which, given what they know about the fiction the GM has presented to them, they believe will have the consequence The blood warlock can no longer get to the knight and drain their life force.

I'm not quite seeing how we seal up the passage is an improvised action. Do you mean that there are no rules for it?

I mean that it was not an action I or the rules provided to them.

In any event, to me this episode doesn't really seem to be an example of player-generated fiction of the sort canvassed in the OP: there is no player-generated backstory/worlbuilding, the players don't seem to have established the focus of the action (that seems to have come from the GM), and the players don't seem to have established what is possible in action declaration (as I said, we seal up the passage seems pretty straightforward to me).

But maybe there's something I've missed or misunderstood?

I think the player deciding to seal up the passage determines the focus of the action (they decided to take this action, and it has consquences) and also establishes what's possible in action declaration (the passage is something that can be sealed up, and we wish to to this thing).

But I wouldn't be surprised if we're having a jargon definition issue, either.

 

[Xetheral]

So here is an exchange I had recently with some friends, and I think its very operative to the discussion because it points at top-down agenda-based items and attendant analysis of how contributions shape play. I won't include the participants handles (none of them are contributors to this thread, by the way, but they are ENW contributors), but I will include myself. What do you think about the different pieces of this:

Poster 1: <Referring to their GMing of D&D 5e>...but it's also my responsibility not to upstage the PCs.​

​

Me: You know there is a contingent of folks who would read that and say something like: "Its not about upstaging the PCs. Its about living, breathing, world. If the characteristics that animate the setting and the motivating aspects of NPCs/Factions are typically or always featured in a way that indexes PCs, then the world becomes sterile and flat."​

​

That is what they would say and that is what they do say. They say:​

​

"If a GM or system uses setting primarily (or exclusively) as a means to frame conflicts and render consequences around player-espoused interests (which index their PC's novel, assertive dramatic needs), then the world is inherently sterile, flat...and, by way of sterility and flatness...dead...unimmersive."​

​

Therefore, the quiet part said out loud is:​

​

"At some level of frequency and/or magnitude, it is essential for setting to upstage PCs."​

​

Poster 2: Far far better for the player characters to feel sterile and flat.​

---

You and I have had lots of discussions on this board. Of the people that typically disagree with me (and I them), I would say that you and I have had probably the most productive and functional discussions. I feel like I have an idea on where you come from at this point.

My sense is that you (a) definitely do not agree that Poster 2's statement is downrange of what you see me write. Is that correct? If so, I would say that is an essential piece here.

More interesting to me thought is (b) what is your appraisal of this 5e GM's assertion at the top? Further, (c) what is your appraisal of what I have written in the above exchange, both my Steelmanning of folks' position above and then my derived conclusion at the bottom?

I think that is also an essential piece of this conversation.

That's an interesting line of discussion. I'm also curious to see how @Crimson Longinus will respond.

I do have a clarifying question, however: when your refer to the GM upstaging the PCs, are you referring to the PCs being diegetically upstaged IC by events and/or NPCs? Or are you referring to the GM not upstaging the players at the table, OOC? Your use of "PCs" instead of "players" and your emphasis on how the game world is perceived led to me to originally read your question in the former sense, but the latter sense could be argued to more directly pertain to the question of fiction authorship, so I figured I'd double-check.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In my estimation, the appraisal process is less fraught than you're making it here.

Yes, it will entail developing first principles for analysis and yes, depending upon where play is in the maturation of its continuity there will be more or less disentangling of varying contributions (System, GM, Players), but its not some kind of inscrutable black box.

Whether you're evaluating at the level of the scene or at the level continuity-to-date, it can absolutely be done. Obviously, the former is less multivariate and therefore easier than the latter, but both can be done.

I am not saying it is not measurable, just that if you measure it, for most games the result will be "eh, it's a mix." Different GMs certainly will have different emphasis, and there are some people who have very strong preference to push into one direction or another, but most don't. And not just because they have not given it thought, they might have, and concluded they don't like the extremes.

Like there are HC narrativists that feel that everything that is framed should somehow be addressing and informed by the characters and then there are HC simulationists who think that the GM should be just completely neutral arbiter and the world should run like a clockwork without any consideration for who the characters might be. But most people do not fall in either of these camps. It is fine to say that the world can have established myth, may have things going on not directly related to the characters, and still, as the GM needs to make million choices and invent thousand things anyway, at least some of those should be tailored for the characters. Like in any story, some moments might about character development, and some might be more about problem solving, and perhaps sometimes it might be just about experiencing the world. And it's fine. More than fine in fact, to me it is preferable to just always being about the one thing, regardless of what that thing was.

So here is an exchange I had recently with some friends, and I think its very operative to the discussion because it points at top-down agenda-based items and attendant analysis of how contributions shape play. I won't include the participants handles (none of them are contributors to this thread, by the way, but they are ENW contributors), but I will include myself. What do you think about the different pieces of this:

Poster 1: <Referring to their GMing of D&D 5e>...but it's also my responsibility not to upstage the PCs.​

​

Me: You know there is a contingent of folks who would read that and say something like: "Its not about upstaging the PCs. Its about living, breathing, world. If the characteristics that animate the setting and the motivating aspects of NPCs/Factions are typically or always featured in a way that indexes PCs, then the world becomes sterile and flat."​

​

That is what they would say and that is what they do say. They say:​

​

"If a GM or system uses setting primarily (or exclusively) as a means to frame conflicts and render consequences around player-espoused interests (which index their PC's novel, assertive dramatic needs), then the world is inherently sterile, flat...and, by way of sterility and flatness...dead...unimmersive."​

​

Therefore, the quiet part said out loud is:​

​

"At some level of frequency and/or magnitude, it is essential for setting to upstage PCs."​

​

Poster 2: Far far better for the player characters to feel sterile and flat.​

---

You and I have had lots of discussions on this board. Of the people that typically disagree with me (and I them), I would say that you and I have had probably the most productive and functional discussions. I feel like I have an idea on where you come from at this point.

Thank you, that was genuinely nice to hear.

My sense is that you (a) definitely do not agree that Poster 2's statement is downrange of what you see me write. Is that correct? If so, I would say that is an essential piece here.

More interesting to me thought is (b) what is your appraisal of this 5e GM's assertion at the top? Further, (c) what is your appraisal of what I have written in the above exchange, both my Steelmanning of folks' position above and then my derived conclusion at the bottom?

I think that is also an essential piece of this conversation.

So I am a tad perplexed by "upstaging." What does it mean for the setting to upstage the characters? That certainly isn't an expression I'd use. But if the meaning is that the setting has its own objective reality, that it is not just malleable and vague mush shaped to what feels most convenient/dramatic/thematic at the moment, then I get it. And I guess that is usually meant by "living, breathing world." It has reality, it has teeth. Certain things are in certain way, NPCs have personalities and agendas they will pursue, certain things are going to happen, and that's that.

Both as GM and as player I prefer this to be the case to a certain extent. (Granted, as a player it is enough that it appears to me to be so. I don't really care if it is an illusion, as long as it is a convincing one.) Now I am not even remotely HC about this. Things can be defined in broad strokes, and the PCs obviously are "the main characters," we want cool, interesting, dramatic and thematically appropriate things happen to them, and there is plenty of leeway to make it so. But I do feel that there indeed is a point, if everything in the world seems to revolve the PCs, if everything is always conveniently related to them, things happen always in conveniently dramatic way, where it starts to feel artificial and false. And this doesn't even apply just to NPCs, in other storytelling too it is possible to lose the suspension of disbelief, if this happens.

But the world is not there to compete with the PCs for attention. It exists to give context to their actions. It also exists to be immersed in, to help feeling like you're a person living in this fictional reality. So I don't get the upstaging. It is not a competition.

 

[Umbran]

I was simply being direct.

It isn't like directness precludes rudeness.

You made a claim of knowing why he did a thing (to "squirm out of the way") in a pretty clearly uncomplimentary manner. That's making it personal, and kind of rude.

 

[bloodtide]

What does this look like in play? So here are several examples, including one that I know that I have used before.

These are good examples, and this is something I do for new players and players that just don't immerse in fiction well. With new players and fiction floaters, they just don't "get" RPGs. Once they pick even a vague goal, they have no idea of what to do. It's one of the worst things about the unlimited freedom of RPGs: it's too much for some people. If the solution is not on their character sheet or "I attack" they will just sit there and be unhappy.

Give a character a quest like "get the gold dagger from the Zot manor house". The player looks at their character sheet and does not see a "break into manor house ability" and the player has no idea how to break into a house and can't even imagine how to do it for pretend.

This is where having a Fate Point or other Reality Altering Point works wonders. Instead of just staring at the wall, the player can say "I spend a point". Then the DM lets the player Alter Game Reality a bit. It does keep the game moving.