Quote from: crkrueger on October 30, 2021, 08:50:51 AM

Quote from: SHARK on October 27, 2021, 07:20:21 PM

Quote from: tenbones on October 27, 2021, 02:50:55 PM
I do both.

My NPC's have their motivations. They have actions they enact during the game while my PC's are doing their things. The "Story" is where those actions intersect.

I merely present those interactions on either side of the equation and give my PC's all the leeway they can muster (probably more) to let them in on the NPC's motivations and their actions which of course influence their play. And I present all of this with as much detail as necessary to raise the fun to the highest level - or to extract the emotional reaction (desired or not) that elevates the game.

The story is simply what emerges out of those interactions.

Greetings!

Yep, Tenbones, I agree. I do the same thing, more or less. Sometimes, the Players really jump in and drive "The Story"--and other times, the various NPC's around them--their friends, henchmen, lovers, family members--also engage in and push their own "stories". Meanwhile, the various villains, other NPC's, factions, tribes and whatever in the wider campaign, they too, often have their own agendas and "stories" that they pursue. The bigger story, of course happens when all of that criss-crosses and intersects in interesting ways.

The Player Characters are often central, of course, and serve as "prime movers"--but they aren't the only story being told, or advanced. The world has its own population, with lots of other heroes, villains, NPC's, that are all each doing their own thing, regardless of what the Player Characters are doing. Naturally, at points of interconnection, such NPC's shall respond to the Player Character's actions and motivations. The entire world doesn't just stand around with their thumb up their asses waiting for the Player Characters to "Get Involved." Sometimes, the Player Characters can act bind, stupid, or otherwise entirely clueless, and can oftentimes suffer the consequences for such dithering. The world must always be active and dynamic.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Eh, I think you and Tenbones are mischaracterising what you are doing.  Having a World in Motion doesn't mean you're telling a Story.  Having PCs who are Roleplaying their characters and thinking and choosing things as real people in that setting, then they aren't driving a story, they're Roleplaying people living their lives.

When you put stories and story in quotes...you're not doing what the OP is talking about.  He's talking about designing and running things with an actual narrative structure.

Greetings!

Hmmm...yeah, my friend. I think you are right. I don't really understand what many of these people are talking about, typically with full blown hatred and derision--about stories. The whole game is a story. History, as my professors used to explin, is all about story. The human story. Everything in life is about "stories". Stories of individual people, stories of groups of people, stories of cities, tribes, and nations. Everything is a story. As you mentioned, "Players are playing their characters living their lives"--people living out the daily events and rhythms of their lives, is itself a story.

The RPG is a story, just with different elements moved around in a different order. It's why D&D and RPG's are not Monopoly. They are games, but not purely or solely games, but games that develop, build, and tell a story. How long or brief that story is, or how entertaining or eventful it is, typically varies, but it is still a story. If RPG's weren't about stories, then RPG's wouldn't be nearly as popular as they have been.

Stories are what animates and motivates humans, as people. Everything important to us, throughout all of time, has been formed into stories, or told through stories, or somehow embraced through stories or uses story elements. How we remember things, how we learn and value things, yeah, stories are at the heart of it all, or certainly most of it, in all kinds of ways.

The whole ideological animosity about stories in gaming is in many ways just dumb. RPG's are precisely so fun and entertaining because they embrace storytelling, from start to finish. Character creation, embraces thinking about stories. Interacting with the world environment that the DM has created--again, all about story elements. Stories are good. Stories and storytelling is what makes RPG's so interesting.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 28, 2021, 01:31:59 PM
Would you have changed the place where the body was so they found it if they choose not to go into room 3?

(Bad lip-sync: )

My Three-Cluestick defeats your Quantum Ogre!

Quote
Hmmm...yeah, my friend. I think you are right. I don't really understand what many of these people are talking about, typically with full blown hatred and derision--about stories. The whole game is a story. History, as my professors used to explin, is all about story. The human story. Everything in life is about "stories". Stories of individual people, stories of groups of people, stories of cities, tribes, and nations. Everything is a story. As you mentioned, "Players are playing their characters living their lives"--people living out the daily events and rhythms of their lives, is itself a story.

And yet many people, Shark, particullary I expect RPGsite unWoke, OSR crowd shall tell you that story is just something closed and determined, and story exist only after things are done.
WELCOME IN NOMINALIST HELL, WHERE WORDS ARE INHERENTLY DIVIDED FROM MEANINGS, BY FIERY CHASM SO GREAT AND DEEP THAT EVEN FATHER ABRAHAM CANNOT CROSS IT TO LET YOU KNOW THINGS AS THEY ARE.

QuoteStories are what animates and motivates humans, as people. Everything important to us, throughout all of time, has been formed into stories, or told through stories, or somehow embraced through stories or uses story elements. How we remember things, how we learn and value things, yeah, stories are at the heart of it all, or certainly most of it, in all kinds of ways.

The whole ideological animosity about stories in gaming is in many ways just dumb. RPG's are precisely so fun and entertaining because they embrace storytelling, from start to finish. Character creation, embraces thinking about stories. Interacting with the world environment that the DM has created--again, all about story elements. Stories are good. Stories and storytelling is what makes RPG's so interesting.

I definitely agree. And despite OSR crowd antipathy most of narrative RPGs and straight up storygames (where players are more directors gaming for control over narrative bits, than actors/avatars) are very much against railroading - to the point where many dropped GM altogether precisely so no one can railroad shit down. Railroading was disease mostly not among modern SJW-games, but in the 90's when terrible amounts of adventures for popular RPGs were written down with extremely strict narrative, where players were taken on a ride without much to do, because GM has his story to tell and did not cared about gaming coming in his way.

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 30, 2021, 04:53:51 PM

Quote
Hmmm...yeah, my friend. I think you are right. I don't really understand what many of these people are talking about, typically with full blown hatred and derision--about stories. The whole game is a story. History, as my professors used to explin, is all about story. The human story. Everything in life is about "stories". Stories of individual people, stories of groups of people, stories of cities, tribes, and nations. Everything is a story. As you mentioned, "Players are playing their characters living their lives"--people living out the daily events and rhythms of their lives, is itself a story.

And yet many people, Shark, particullary I expect RPGsite unWoke, OSR crowd shall tell you that story is just something closed and determined, and story exist only after things are done.
WELCOME IN NOMINALIST HELL, WHERE WORDS ARE INHERENTLY DIVIDED FROM MEANINGS, BY FIERY CHASM SO GREAT AND DEEP THAT EVEN FATHER ABRAHAM CANNOT CROSS IT TO LET YOU KNOW THINGS AS THEY ARE.

QuoteStories are what animates and motivates humans, as people. Everything important to us, throughout all of time, has been formed into stories, or told through stories, or somehow embraced through stories or uses story elements. How we remember things, how we learn and value things, yeah, stories are at the heart of it all, or certainly most of it, in all kinds of ways.

The whole ideological animosity about stories in gaming is in many ways just dumb. RPG's are precisely so fun and entertaining because they embrace storytelling, from start to finish. Character creation, embraces thinking about stories. Interacting with the world environment that the DM has created--again, all about story elements. Stories are good. Stories and storytelling is what makes RPG's so interesting.

I definitely agree. And despite OSR crowd antipathy most of narrative RPGs and straight up storygames (where players are more directors gaming for control over narrative bits, than actors/avatars) are very much against railroading - to the point where many dropped GM altogether precisely so no one can railroad shit down. Railroading was disease mostly not among modern SJW-games, but in the 90's when terrible amounts of adventures for popular RPGs were written down with extremely strict narrative, where players were taken on a ride without much to do, because GM has his story to tell and did not cared about gaming coming in his way.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Yeah, Wrath of God, it doesn't take too long, and with just a bit of thought, to see that much of these "stories in gaming are bad" arguments are terrible.

When you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.

Then, there's a story of how the player characters meet up, and form a group. There's a story there. Then, there is a story about how the group gets involved in their first adventure together, and subsequent stories about their adventures together. Then there are stories between the different player characters and NPC's they have met and befriended in the local town.

And on, and on.

Am I making sense here?

I certainly think that there are poorly told stories, poorly developed stories, and so on. That sucks, for sure. But the concept itself of embracing stories in the D&D game, that's somehow terrible? The whole argument seems entirely nonsensical to me, and stupid. It's like some people aren't even speaking the same language as myself. I see "stories" and "storytelling" in virtually every step of the D&D game. Storytelling is omnipresent, ubiquitous, and essential, like breathing air. Take stories out, take storytelling out, whatever you want to label it as or think of it--and you don't have a game. You have merely a bland, meaningless exercise in rolling dice and moving miniatures around the table. STORIES is what breathes life, and fun, and excitement into this game, and always has. Stories and storytelling is the *magic* of D&D and Role-playing games in general.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on October 30, 2021, 05:17:32 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 30, 2021, 04:53:51 PM

Quote
Hmmm...yeah, my friend. I think you are right. I don't really understand what many of these people are talking about, typically with full blown hatred and derision--about stories. The whole game is a story. History, as my professors used to explin, is all about story. The human story. Everything in life is about "stories". Stories of individual people, stories of groups of people, stories of cities, tribes, and nations. Everything is a story. As you mentioned, "Players are playing their characters living their lives"--people living out the daily events and rhythms of their lives, is itself a story.

And yet many people, Shark, particullary I expect RPGsite unWoke, OSR crowd shall tell you that story is just something closed and determined, and story exist only after things are done.
WELCOME IN NOMINALIST HELL, WHERE WORDS ARE INHERENTLY DIVIDED FROM MEANINGS, BY FIERY CHASM SO GREAT AND DEEP THAT EVEN FATHER ABRAHAM CANNOT CROSS IT TO LET YOU KNOW THINGS AS THEY ARE.

QuoteStories are what animates and motivates humans, as people. Everything important to us, throughout all of time, has been formed into stories, or told through stories, or somehow embraced through stories or uses story elements. How we remember things, how we learn and value things, yeah, stories are at the heart of it all, or certainly most of it, in all kinds of ways.

The whole ideological animosity about stories in gaming is in many ways just dumb. RPG's are precisely so fun and entertaining because they embrace storytelling, from start to finish. Character creation, embraces thinking about stories. Interacting with the world environment that the DM has created--again, all about story elements. Stories are good. Stories and storytelling is what makes RPG's so interesting.

I definitely agree. And despite OSR crowd antipathy most of narrative RPGs and straight up storygames (where players are more directors gaming for control over narrative bits, than actors/avatars) are very much against railroading - to the point where many dropped GM altogether precisely so no one can railroad shit down. Railroading was disease mostly not among modern SJW-games, but in the 90's when terrible amounts of adventures for popular RPGs were written down with extremely strict narrative, where players were taken on a ride without much to do, because GM has his story to tell and did not cared about gaming coming in his way.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Yeah, Wrath of God, it doesn't take too long, and with just a bit of thought, to see that much of these "stories in gaming are bad" arguments are terrible.

When you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.

Then, there's a story of how the player characters meet up, and form a group. There's a story there. Then, there is a story about how the group gets involved in their first adventure together, and subsequent stories about their adventures together. Then there are stories between the different player characters and NPC's they have met and befriended in the local town.

And on, and on.

Am I making sense here?

I certainly think that there are poorly told stories, poorly developed stories, and so on. That sucks, for sure. But the concept itself of embracing stories in the D&D game, that's somehow terrible? The whole argument seems entirely nonsensical to me, and stupid. It's like some people aren't even speaking the same language as myself. I see "stories" and "storytelling" in virtually every step of the D&D game. Storytelling is omnipresent, ubiquitous, and essential, like breathing air. Take stories out, take storytelling out, whatever you want to label it as or think of it--and you don't have a game. You have merely a bland, meaningless exercise in rolling dice and moving miniatures around the table. STORIES is what breathes life, and fun, and excitement into this game, and always has. Stories and storytelling is the *magic* of D&D and Role-playing games in general.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Burn the heretics!!!!!

I'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.

QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.

Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM

QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.

Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.

You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:

QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.

okay, lets see:

STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5

Male Human Wizard

What's the story?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM

QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.

Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.

You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:

QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.

okay, lets see:

STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5

Male Human Wizard

What's the story?

The story is emerging from your engagement with the rules of the game - from gameplay.

Slightly clumsy, socially awkward, but above average in physique and exceptional in psyche. Pursued wizardry instead of theology, as he was not deemed good material for leading a flock of the faithful due to his social ineptitude.

Its easy to say "situation of course!" but it depends on the players. My players are more timid, so if not given some pushes, they tend to just not do anything.

Quote from: RandyB on October 31, 2021, 02:20:15 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM

QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.

Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.

You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:

QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.

okay, lets see:

STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5

Male Human Wizard

What's the story?

The story is emerging from your engagement with the rules of the game - from gameplay.

Slightly clumsy, socially awkward, but above average in physique and exceptional in psyche. Pursued wizardry instead of theology, as he was not deemed good material for leading a flock of the faithful due to his social ineptitude.

That's all well and dandy but that's just BS you're making up AFTER the fact. High WIS meant I could have choosen Cleric as the class. And you would have adjusted your interpretation to that.

I'm not telling a story by rolling my character, I'm rolling my character to have it live in the fictional world.

And I (and maybe the PC in the game world), will tell stories about what happened in the game world AFTER it happened.

Thus neither I, my fellow players, the DM nor our characters are TELLING a story, we're making history.

You tell fishing stories AFTER the fishing, you don't go fishing to tell a story. Because a story might or might not emerge.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on October 27, 2021, 12:39:31 PM
When playing/DMing, do you think it's more important to tell a coherent story (with beats, pacing, etc) or to present a situation?

I strongly prefer setting up a situation (actually, I'd say more than one "situation"). The story part is created by the players and their decisions during play.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM

QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.

Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.

You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:

QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.

okay, lets see:

STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5

Male Human Wizard

What's the story?

Greetings!

*Laughing* Yeah, he must have a very high wisdom score to hope to explain how he an I agree on something!

It does happen, though. "A broken clock is still right twice a day!"

But in your example, my friend, yeah, that character is fine for a beer-and-pretzel slaughterfest. A hack & slash game, where even your character having a name is merely a minor and unimportant detail.

But I know players that would seek to know, and figure out, their character's name. Who their parents are. What was their childhood like? How many siblings do they have? Do they have other family relatives? What kind of relationships does their character have with their siblings and other relatives, such as uncles, aunts, an cousins?

Where did their character grow up, and spend their childhood? How do their parents make a living, and provide for them and the family? What is their family's reputation like in the local community? Does their character have any close friends from childhood or adolescence?

What kind of religion did their character grow up in with their family? Does their character's parents embrace any particular kind of politics? Does the character's family identify particularly with the predominant culture of the town or realm, or is there other issues that are important to the character's family?

What about early romances? Who was the first person they had sex with? What was their first romance like? Does their character have any current romantic relationships?

How did their character get apprenticed to the Wizard? What is their Wizard Master like? What was their apprenticeship like? What kind of relationship does their character have with their Wizard Master currently?

So, yeah. Either the player character creates all of that kind of information--creating a kind of story--or you, the DM, have input into that as well, and supervise such information and background, to one degree or another. None the less, the player is essentially telling the DM a story about their character, who their character is, who their character's family is, and how that character generally fits into the DM's campaign world. Naturally, the player is also providing a story about their character to the DM, but also to the other players in the group. Similarly, the other players in the group are also likely to provide their characters with the foundations of a personalized story as well.

Yeah, so there is definitely room for all kinds of stories going on, long before the player characters first set foot in the dungeon's doorway.

I have been exposed to playing campaigns with numerous women players, and while men players also occasionally enjoy such detailed stories and backgrounds, and fitting their characters into the campaign world, for certain the women definitely prefer all of these kinds of things. Most of the time, the women players have been keenly interested in developing all kinds of details about their characters. Something thrown at them like what you posted would be meaningless to most of them. They need to emotionally identify with their characters, and see how their characters fit into the world, and so on, so they care about and identify with their characters. Otherwise such a boring, bare-bones mechanical character would likely seem as nothing more than an expendable game piece to them. The women also often ask each other these kinds of questions about their characters--and if they haven't come up with the stories filling in all of these kinds of details--they are definitely likely to expect you, the DM, to help them come up with detailed answers for these kinds of questions about their character, their character's family, background, early relationships, friendships, romances, and all of that. THEN, they of course all want to know about the other women's characters, too. So the other women also want all of these kinds of answers, too. They love to talk an talk and talk, an share all these kinds of stories about their characters with each other.

Adventures that their characters go on and participate in, soon, more or less--yes, there are stories that will develop from those adventures, too--but there are stories about the character that have already occurred, and in the case of current relationships, are ongoing.

So, yes. Lots of different stories going on and being developed.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on October 31, 2021, 04:43:42 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM

QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.

Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.

You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:

QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.

okay, lets see:

STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5

Male Human Wizard

What's the story?

Greetings!

*Laughing* Yeah, he must have a very high wisdom score to hope to explain how he an I agree on something!

It does happen, though. "A broken clock is still right twice a day!"

But in your example, my friend, yeah, that character is fine for a beer-and-pretzel slaughterfest. A hack & slash game, where even your character having a name is merely a minor and unimportant detail.

But I know players that would seek to know, and figure out, their character's name. Who their parents are. What was their childhood like? How many siblings do they have? Do they have other family relatives? What kind of relationships does their character have with their siblings and other relatives, such as uncles, aunts, an cousins?

Where did their character grow up, and spend their childhood? How do their parents make a living, and provide for them and the family? What is their family's reputation like in the local community? Does their character have any close friends from childhood or adolescence?

What kind of religion did their character grow up in with their family? Does their character's parents embrace any particular kind of politics? Does the character's family identify particularly with the predominant culture of the town or realm, or is there other issues that are important to the character's family?

What about early romances? Who was the first person they had sex with? What was their first romance like? Does their character have any current romantic relationships?

How did their character get apprenticed to the Wizard? What is their Wizard Master like? What was their apprenticeship like? What kind of relationship does their character have with their Wizard Master currently?

So, yeah. Either the player character creates all of that kind of information--creating a kind of story--or you, the DM, have input into that as well, and supervise such information and background, to one degree or another. None the less, the player is essentially telling the DM a story about their character, who their character is, who their character's family is, and how that character generally fits into the DM's campaign world. Naturally, the player is also providing a story about their character to the DM, but also to the other players in the group. Similarly, the other players in the group are also likely to provide their characters with the foundations of a personalized story as well.

Yeah, so there is definitely room for all kinds of stories going on, long before the player characters first set foot in the dungeon's doorway.

I have been exposed to playing campaigns with numerous women players, and while men players also occasionally enjoy such detailed stories and backgrounds, and fitting their characters into the campaign world, for certain the women definitely prefer all of these kinds of things. Most of the time, the women players have been keenly interested in developing all kinds of details about their characters. Something thrown at them like what you posted would be meaningless to most of them. They need to emotionally identify with their characters, and see how their characters fit into the world, and so on, so they care about and identify with their characters. Otherwise such a boring, bare-bones mechanical character would likely seem as nothing more than an expendable game piece to them. The women also often ask each other these kinds of questions about their characters--and if they haven't come up with the stories filling in all of these kinds of details--they are definitely likely to expect you, the DM, to help them come up with detailed answers for these kinds of questions about their character, their character's family, background, early relationships, friendships, romances, and all of that. THEN, they of course all want to know about the other women's characters, too. So the other women also want all of these kinds of answers, too. They love to talk an talk and talk, an share all these kinds of stories about their characters with each other.

Adventures that their characters go on and participate in, soon, more or less--yes, there are stories that will develop from those adventures, too--but there are stories about the character that have already occurred, and in the case of current relationships, are ongoing.

So, yes. Lots of different stories going on and being developed.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

So, it's not when I roll my character, but when/if I write some type of background for it, be it a small paragraph or a novellete when I'm telling a story about it to the DM and the other players.

Which is not what you said hermano.

And, if said story about my very special snowflake has no impact on the game then it has no case ever thinking it, much less writing it.

Mind you I'm not totally against PC backgrounds, but if I allow them then I have a table to roll on so you find out something about your PC and said background will provide some mechanical advantage/disadvantage to your PC.

Or I don't allow it at all.

My current group, none of us wrote shit about our PCs before hand, and yet we have made some small BS in the year+ since the campaign started. Except one guy (whose original dwarven PC got killed) we all have the same characters.

The Bard (Hey, I'm not the DM) just got engaged, he made up some BS about his family on the spot because the bride to be family asked something about having big families. And now that's canon. But it wouldn't have hapened had he not pursued the barmaid for a real world year, asked her parents for her hand in matrimony...

The Elf just started a freight bussiness, the giant killing machine halfling started his own scout army to patrol the countryside and mkeep it clean of fuglies.

I'm managing farms and soon a magic school.

And we have tons of funny and or amazing stories to tell of what has happened in the game. And I guess the grandchildren of the Bard will be telling the tales of their heroic grandpa well after my PC dies.

Do I care about my PC? Hell yes, it took some luck and smart playing to be on the cusp of reaching 10th level. But if he gets killed next session I wouldn't cry. I would take the dice, roll a new character and start all over again.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 02:59:17 PM

Quote from: RandyB on October 31, 2021, 02:20:15 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM

QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.

Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.

You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:

QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.

okay, lets see:

STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5

Male Human Wizard

What's the story?

The story is emerging from your engagement with the rules of the game - from gameplay.

Slightly clumsy, socially awkward, but above average in physique and exceptional in psyche. Pursued wizardry instead of theology, as he was not deemed good material for leading a flock of the faithful due to his social ineptitude.

That's all well and dandy but that's just BS you're making up AFTER the fact. High WIS meant I could have choosen Cleric as the class. And you would have adjusted your interpretation to that.

I'm not telling a story by rolling my character, I'm rolling my character to have it live in the fictional world.

And I (and maybe the PC in the game world), will tell stories about what happened in the game world AFTER it happened.

Thus neither I, my fellow players, the DM nor our characters are TELLING a story, we're making history.

You tell fishing stories AFTER the fishing, you don't go fishing to tell a story. Because a story might or might not emerge.

Exactly my major point. Story emerges from game play. Chargen is game play - the first act of play by the player. I extrapolated one possibility from the report of play, based on the details given. I did not prescribe that character's story arc across the campaign, because that will emerge from game play - if the character survives to have a significant story at all.

Quote from: RandyB on October 31, 2021, 06:34:09 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 02:59:17 PM

Quote from: RandyB on October 31, 2021, 02:20:15 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 01:45:04 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 31, 2021, 11:27:00 AM

QuoteI'll need someone to bring me the heavy flamer.

Roll +3 on Narrative Convinience.

You'll need to roll a very high WIS to explain something you and Shark agree on:

QuoteWhen you sit own to write up and roll up a character--you are telling the DM a story, about how your character got from childhood to adulthood. Who their parents were, what their adolescence was like, with more or less additional input from the DM. It's a story, though, about your character. Then, the DM tells you and the players a story about the game world. How the campaign is, assumptions, all that. The framework for your character to be in. That, too, is a story.

okay, lets see:

STR 12
INT 14
WIS 15
CON 12
DEX 8
CHA 5

Male Human Wizard

What's the story?

The story is emerging from your engagement with the rules of the game - from gameplay.

Slightly clumsy, socially awkward, but above average in physique and exceptional in psyche. Pursued wizardry instead of theology, as he was not deemed good material for leading a flock of the faithful due to his social ineptitude.

That's all well and dandy but that's just BS you're making up AFTER the fact. High WIS meant I could have choosen Cleric as the class. And you would have adjusted your interpretation to that.

I'm not telling a story by rolling my character, I'm rolling my character to have it live in the fictional world.

And I (and maybe the PC in the game world), will tell stories about what happened in the game world AFTER it happened.

Thus neither I, my fellow players, the DM nor our characters are TELLING a story, we're making history.

You tell fishing stories AFTER the fishing, you don't go fishing to tell a story. Because a story might or might not emerge.

Exactly my major point. Story emerges from game play. Chargen is game play - the first act of play by the player. I extrapolated one possibility from the report of play, based on the details given. I did not prescribe that character's story arc across the campaign, because that will emerge from game play - if the character survives to have a significant story at all.

Greetings!

Exactly, RandyB. Very good points.

In my own earlier commentary, I described how there isn't just *ONE* story going on, or being told, but several stories, ongoing and continuously. There are individual player character stories--that begin at Chargen, like you maintain--and there is a story of the *group*; there are stories of the DM's overall campaign world, various NPC's, and all of it. Multi-layered, and different sub-stories of major characters, minor characters, all with different lives, different experiences, and different perspectives. Obviously, some characters may have more dramatic and meaningful stories--like potentially the player characters--while other characters, like one of the player character's younger sisters, may have an interesting story, but her story is far more ordinary and routine. And so on, with lots of different characters coming and going, interacting with the player characters, all contributing to different layers of stories that are developing and emerging throughout the campaign.

When any campaign begins--at Chargen--that is like when the "camera" clicks on, or the chronicler begins writing a new chapter. There were still stories that existed prior to *this immediate* story, such as the player character's adolescence, their apprenticeship or early training, whatever. There are stories set in the past, and stories unfolding currently, with unknown potential futures.

I'm not sure why some people are so disdainful of background stories for player characters. Background stories are the player character's foundations, how they identify with their character, get to know the character, where the character began, and where they go as they develop. Intellectually, personally, professionally, in all kinds of ways. Background development also provide a framework for player characters to "flesh out" their character, and interpret them and portray them at the table. Bein aware and mindful of the values they grew up with, the culture they were raised in, what kind of family they had, what kind of religion and spirituality their character embraces, and much more. Many of these dynamics are not determined in the "adventure" crawling through a dungeon, but during the character's childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. That lays the foundations of the character, which are then modified, shaped, and grown by the character's new experiences. All of these kinds of details can help a player actually role-play their character in more realistic and meaningful ways, and not just as a game-piece to be slaughtered as a nameless red-shirt in the next dungeon crawl. Seeing that D&D is a role-playing game, I think that players actually embracing their characters and role-playing their characters should be seen as a oood thing to be encouraged.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK