[freeroleplay] Is role-playing about telling a story?

[Samuel Penn]

On Monday 05 June 2006 18:53, Scot Newbury wrote:
> On 6/5/06, Samuel Penn <sam at glendale.org.uk> wrote:
> > On Mon, June 5, 2006 10:22, Ricardo Gladwell wrote:
> > > http://www.hoboes.com/html/RPG/Gods/?ART=13
> > >
> > > Its a good question and I agree with the general points that Jerry
> > > makes. I think a lot of confusion arises out of the fact that, by
> > > playing a RPG, you do end up with a narrative at the end of a game.
> > >
> > > Thoughts?
> >
> > I try not to run a 'story' as such, but have a series of events
> > which the PCs may get involved with. Creating a story around
> > the characters is something I don't like, though obviously a
> > story will come out of the game.
> >
> > Some people do run the game as a story (such games tend to get
> > labelled as rail roading when its done badly) however, and
> > what they mean by story can be quite different to the story
> > that comes out of my games.
>
> In my opinion role-playing is all about the story.

Which comes down to how you define "story" :-) There's been some nasty
flame wars on rec.games.frp.misc about this.

> I'm not saying that you plot out every detail, cast the PCs and hand out
> ready made characters - that would fall into the category of 'rail roading'
> - but I do have an overlaying story arc.

I think a lot of it comes down to how the game is run.

> Case in point my current campaign, 3.5D&D currently on hiatus, has the
> overlaying story of a keystone that was broken into four separate pieces
> after being used to seal away a fabled city. The original four party 
> members started off in the employ of someone who wanted those pieces - it
> wasn't their quest, it didn't matter how they went about it and if fact I
> simply role-played the cast of NPCs to put this offer in front of them.  It
> was the group's decision to "go for it."

My question would be, what would have happened if the PCs hadn't decided to
"go for it"? If they hadn't, would the search for the keystone still have
happened? A couple of game years down the line, whilst the PCs are doing
something else, would they have started hearing stories about a recently
discovered fabled city?

Some people like to run a "story", which ultimately is centred around the
PCs. If the PCs decide to take a break from following up the threads of
that "story", then the "story" goes on hold. If they decide to drop the
"story", or miss obvious clues through bad luck or incompetence, then
further clues will appear to nudge them back on track.

In this sense, the GM is running a "story" - the aim of the game is to
tell that "story". There might be lots of flexibility in how the "story"
turns out, but ultimately it has a beginning, middle and end, and is
invented for the purpose of giving the PCs something to do. Without the
PCs, then it dies and is ignored.


I ran something something similar for an Ars Magica campaign. The PCs
covenant had a sealed area beneath, and they needed four keys to unlock
it. They knew very little about it. As it happened, a very powerful group
of people were looking for the place, but it was hidden well enough that
they had no chance of finding it unless something happened to alert them.
I had a timeline worked out for 15-20 game years of what would happen if
the PCs did nothing, and what events would be kicked off if the PCs did
certain things.

In one sense it's a story, though I prefer to think of it as a series of
causal events. Once the PCs started opening things, events would happen
that they would have no idea about unless they were lucky or very clever.
Fine, events continue to tick on regardless of whether the PCs get
themselves involved or not. Other events in the world continue along their
own course as well.

Mostly, they hear about these events second hand. Sometimes they interfere
and change the planned course of events. Sometimes they investigate something
and run into dead ends so halt the investigations, having no idea about
what was going on. Since the PCs aren't central to the events, this doesn't
matter and the events continue. Maybe, years later, they'll see the results
and go "oh, yeah, that".

After they'd started fiddling with things to open some of the locks,
people started to notice. At least once, things came sniffing around their
covenant when all the major PCs had decided to go off to Europe for a
few months. It hadn't been planned that way - I knew that early in the
year someone would come looking and chose a date. Nearer that date, the
PCs decide to leave the covenant pretty much unguarded on that date.
They were not expecting me to tell them to start playing their minor
characters who were left back at the covenant that session. They were
very lucky in that they managed to keep things hidden.

If I'd been running a "story", then I would have changed things around
so that their main characters were around at the time. In a "story",
important events don't happen to minor characters unless it's for a
reason.


Sometimes players don't like it when things happen behind their character's
back. "That's not fair, I didn't get a chance to stop it." Well, no, it's
not a story that's being run for your character's benefit. It's just the
way the world works.

I've played in a lot of games where the "story" is the focus, and it's
very obviously there for the benefit of the PCs. Everything happens at
the dramatically appropriate time. If the PCs go to city A, then the
next important event happens there. If they go to city B, then it happens
there instead.

In games where the "story" isn't the focus, then the event happens in the
city where it is most likely to happen, regardless of where the PCs are.

In "story" focused games, players tend to meta-game - deciding what to do
based on what will serve the story best. I've played in games where we as
PCs have missed what was going on. Some players kept on plugging at things
waiting for the GM to throw another 'clue'. There wasn't going to be
another clue though, because we'd missed the boat and the events had
moved on. That was fine by me, since I don't like plots being forced
into a story.

In one sense, a lot games are run much like computer RPGs. There are
certain trigger points that will kick off the next part of the plot.
The entire world is threatened with extinction, the great seals are
about to be opened, and the hordes of evil unleashed on the world.
However, it won't happen until the PCs go talk to the old hermit who
will warn them about this and tell them that they have 7 days to
find the 'lost amulet of bling'. Until that point though, the end of
the world is on hold, and they can wander around bashing orcs for
months until they run into the old hermit.

> Since that time things have changed in the group, PCs have come and gone
> and the party is about to add a member; the focus has changed.  What does
> that mean?  For all but one member of the party it means defining their own
> goals and it means that my main story arc becomes the backdrop for
> everything else going on - a story that's touched upon and interacted with
> but continues to march on until it climaxes in a different manner that I
> had originally intended.

From this, I get the impression that the "story" was more a series of
events which didn't need the input of the PCs to happen. A story comes
out of this, but it's more part of the backdrop of the world rather
than being the point of the world.

I like playing low fantasy games, where the PCs are a lot smaller than
the events going on around them. By making the story (and hence the PCs)
the focus, then games loose some of that. By not being able to see all
of what is going on, the campaign world seems more real.

In my mind, a detailed, living, background with plenty of events going
on isn't necessarily a "story". It can tell a story, and can lead to many
memorable adventures which are later recounted as stories, but it isn't
a "story". A "story" is it's own reason (and causes may be invented to
make it fit into the world). Events happen because of a cause, not because
it would be dramatically appropriate.

This is why I commented on Jerry's statement that he didn't know what
he meant by story. Some people insist that they don't run stories (or
plots), and there can be quite heated discussions about the meaning of
the term. In reality, I think there's a lot of cross over between
stories and events, and ultimately events which the PCs are investigating
will have more detail than events they know nothing about.

That email was somewhat longer than I was expecting, so hopefully it made
some sort of sense :-)


-- 
Be seeing you,                         http://www.glendale.org.uk
Sam.                        
              IM: samuel.penn at jabber.org or samuel.penn at gmail.com