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In the latest supplemental video to Me, Myself, & Die, Trevor tackles the notion of the GM as "storyteller",or RPGs "creating stories", a subect I've talked about in length many times:
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It is suggested that to get maximum use of this setting that the referee look over the locales, then chose the ones that best suit the campaign. Note the NPCs and their circumstances. Develop a timeline of events if the characters are not involved. Detail important locales and add new ones of your own design. Do the same for the NPCs, and make notes on their motivations and personalities.
After each session of the campaign, review what the players did. Look at your original timeline of events, see what impact their actions had, and make the needed changes. Sometimes the players’ actions will lead to a new and unexpected chain of events.
The creativity of the referee comes by not forcing his players to follow a predetermined story, but to develop new and interesting consequences based on the players’ actions. Use the NPC’s motivations and personalities to decide which consequences are the most likely and pick the most interesting.
The result is a campaign where the players feel they are forging their character’s destiny within a living, breathing world. It will not only be fun and adventurous, but also filled with surprises. Consequences will accumulate and spin the campaign into unexpected directions.
Here's what I have always tried to do.
First, I come up with a story. I figure out where I'd like things to go. I also get the players to create characters and figure out what kinds of things they think are cool.
I predict what characters might do. I prepare based on some of those predictions. Yep, I create setpieces that I hope I'll be able to use in game.
If the players do as expected, they run into the prepared bits. If the players don't do as expected, it's time to improvise. Improvisation is the GM's most important trait. The players are contributing to the story. At the most binary, the GM is asking himself, is this something I should adapt to the storyline I prepared, or is this something I should abandon my storyline to pursue, and then adjust the progress of the game accordingly.
The result is the story gets better. A GM is DEFINITELY a Storyteller. But so are the Players. The GM comes up with a story, the players make their contributions which inherenty change that story. By the very definition, running a game is inviting a group to create a story.
Another problem is the hardline stance taken about GMs being absolute gods of setting and having total control while players only directly control their individual playing pieces. I've grown to feel that this is a very narrow way to look at RPGs like they're games of Monopoly or something. If immersion is any kind of goal, then a basic fact of immersion is that every participant at the table is forming a different image of the setting and proceedings than the next guy. The trick is to get everyone on a closely enough aligned understanding that everyone at the table is compatible. The GM has hardass setting lord philosphy spits in the face of immersion and states that the GM is the only one whose perception of the world matters. I also think that hardline philosophy is one of the reasons why the followers reject storytelling as an option, because it rejects the idea that anyone other than the GM has meaningful control. They automatically assume any storytelling would be a railroad, because that's the only way the power centralized GM role they accept as the norm could do it.
I think the focus on conflict that comes up a lot in GM advice occludes the actual role of the GM.I feel like the video really focuses on the GM as the creator of conflict. But that's one of the core elements of story. Setting up a conflict absolutely touches on storytelling. Whatever conflict is set up will have a huge impact on how the game plays out.
I think the focus on conflict that comes up a lot in GM advice occludes the actual role of the dungeon master.
Creating conflict is not the most basic aspect of GM's roll. Role-playing games are structured and paced around decision points, not conflict. Conflict of course is a good way to create a decision points, but it doesn't guarantee them.
You can throw a map at a group of players and say where do you want to go and they can pour over their options and be engaged without any real source of conflict. You can have the PCs as soldiers in the great army against the forces of evil, and it can be boring and railroaded because there are not real decisions to be made.
I agree.I think that they were talking about conflict in the sense of decisions to be made. Of opposing elements or options. Not just conflict of the physical variety.
In that sense I think their meaning is very much in line with what you’re talking about.
That “what do you do?” moment is a conflict. Do we do A or B, each with its own pros and cons.
It may or not be what people are thinking of, but that's not what a conflict is, and the general connotations of conflict lead to confusion and distort thinking.I think that they were talking about conflict in the sense of decisions to be made. Of opposing elements or options. Not just conflict of the physical variety.
In that sense I think their meaning is very much in line with what you’re talking about.
That “what do you do?” moment is a conflict. Do we do A or B, each with its own pros and cons.
That's actually why I was initially so snarky. I assumed it was another screechy YOURE PLAYING IT WRONG video.I think there's been some incredibly bad faith interpretations based on chips on the shoulders left over from "personalities" on other forums.
But this is why the distinction matters. I tend to think that focusing on conflict means mssing the real point.I agree.
A creampuff fight with mooks who have zero chance of really harming the PCs isn't any more meaningful or "empowering" for the players than dictating their journey to them.
But fights with real risks (or having the ability to avoid the fight through one scenario or another) or even deciding which leads to follow is a meaningful conflict (so long as the outcome is not predetermined regardless of what they decide to do).
It may or not be what people are thinking of, but that's not what a conflict is, and the general connotations of conflict lead to confusion and distort thinking.
It's always better to use the more precise terms.
"I'm so conflicted!"He's using conflict in the literary sense, not the RPG/wargamer sense.
I get that they're using conflict in a literary sense. That was exactly my point. Rpgs are not literary works! They are games.Well, Professor DM used conflict in the sense of a traditional narrative, with an author who constructs the conflicts with the characters and then also constructs the resolution. He points out that with an RPG, the GM constructs the conflict, then the players decide how to address the conflict, and then the dice which will determine how it goes. So he's using it in the literary sense, but applying it to an RPG, and then explaining what makes it different.
Then Trevor describes the job of a GM as the "instigator of conflict, or instigator of obstacles". He equates conflict with obstacles, which don't need to be physical obstacles. The job of the GM is to create obstacles that allow the players to make meaningful decisions that affect the environment of the game.
So as much as I'd hate to see the conversation devolve into quibbling about definitions, I hope you can see why I am reading their use of conflict this way.
NOPE. Not even in the same galactic supercluster as the truth. That’s your definition, because you think of Roleplaying as story creation, and therefore use it to create stories.By the very definition, running a game is inviting a group to create a story.
Yep. Finished the video. It's the same kind of anti-story diet Pundit bullshit that has been floating around for ages.
It seems to me that the game is more like 'story interruptus'... the story is what would happen if the PCs didn't show up and poke at things. They might hear about it later as news, they might not... it might become background for a new situation... which they might engage with, or not.
The 'conflict' just those places where the PCs, in whatever way, interact with the setting and influence it.
What you just described seems exactly the way Prof DM runs his games, btw
And myself, actually, when I use prewritten scenarios as a basis
I'm not going to pretend I'm familiar with either of the guys in that video. This is the first time I've encountered them, as I generally don't watch podcasts or YouTube videos about gaming (other than Seth Skorkowsky sometimes). Based on what you've both said about them I'd say that they're not communicating their ideas that well to someone who isn't already familiar with them but, as that may well be their intent or expectation, that's okay. Thanks to the likes of Ron/Forge and Pundit it's difficult to discuss "story" as an RPG subject without any baggage though.This has nothing whatsoever to do with narrative playstyles or mechanics. I know for a fact Trevor doesn't have the same issues with those that I do.
It's solely the difference between the players having agency or the GM railroading them through their fanfic.
I'd say it is a storytelling medium. Even if not all RPGs are intended to be. An RPG tells stories in it's own unique way that is related to, but unique from, traditional (and some not-so-traditional) mediums. The storytelling part is always going to be down to the people playing though. I have friends who just play RPGs as minatures-based skirmish games. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with railroads either, if everyone is on board for that and having fun. There's lots of different ways to play and I don't think any one way is objectively superior to another.I've said for decades that RPGs are at best distant relatives of storytelling media. And not a good way to tell a story. Been dogpiled, shouted down and accused of heresy of all stripes for that, too. It was only when I joined the Pub that I found other people with similar attitudes.
You forgot to add in Player F, who just randomly rolled a dice and loudly exclaims "Hey, I found something! What does my character find?!"Me as storyteller: “I’m going to tell you a tale about the time your investigators found out who committed the heinous murder of Old Man Gribbly. It was a cold and stormy….”
Player A, interrupting my story: “How much does it pay? I’m not investigating some dead guy for free.”
Player B, “Yeah, maybe if the pay sucks we can track down the murderer and blackmail them into not having us deliver them to the cops.”
Player C, “And maybe we can murder that jerk hoodlum who has been hassling us and frame the murderer for that one too.”
Player D, “I want to buy bullets. Can I do that now? How much do they cost again? Let’s go to the gun shop.”
Player E, “Hell yeah! This story is great. Tell us what happens next.”
Me, looking at my tattered and battered story, “Umm….”
You forgot to add in Player F, who just randomly rolled a dice and loudly exclaims "Hey, I found something! What does my character find?!"
And then Player G starts rambling on about how this scene reminds him of a movie he saw as a kid and etc etc etc