Quote from: Ratman_tf on October 27, 2021, 12:39:31 PM
Telling a story versus presenting a situation.

Neither. Sandbox players that are character-driven will have a great story of their own to tell at the end of their session.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 31, 2021, 02:59:17 PMThat'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.

No, because - at least in AD&D1e, which is the only one that counts - not only could he not be a cleric, he couldn't be a wizard, because Charisma 5 - "here or lower the character can only be an assassin." And he doesn't have the stats to be an assassin. Your character is an NPC 0-level something or other, forget about him, roll again.

You are of course correct that "story" is something we make up after play, where we take the confused mess of more-or-less random events and pretend they're somehow connected.

I think that this is driven, to somee extent, by the way the game approaches published adventures in general.  D&D can handle both story-driven and situational out of the box, but the DM will have to work to make story-driven happen over the long term.  Games where published adventures are more akin to "locale sourcebooks" are much easier to drive a story but the GM has a lot of work for situational things.  Am example might be that an "adventure" describes a town with a mine, details the motivations of the significant NPCs and factions, and notes several hooks.  But the details of the mine?  Yeah, like filling out D&D's B1, it might be left to the GM to add that info.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on October 31, 2021, 08:19:13 PMYou are of course correct that "story" is something we make up after play, where we take the confused mess of more-or-less random events and pretend they're somehow connected.

Well they are unless your just telling viniets. A story is the condensed retelling of a bunch of stuff happening one after another to focus in on some element and make it smoother.

QuoteWhat's the story?

SHARK, did not said that rolling character creates a story, he said - you tell your backstory to DM while creating character (which include rolling).
Though of course you can roll backstory - there are systems for that, or big random tables books from Old School times, various systems with backgrounds and so forth.
Some time ago I found three ancient PDFs of Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Modern books who are all about generating backstories. Clunky as old times were, but still very funny to create character from.

Quotehat'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.

Well yes - generally in systems where you roll your characters randomly it's wise and prude to design backstory after randomisation ended.

QuoteI'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.

And here we back to this pointless discussion about story definition. It's kinda obvious that story as used in terms "storygames" or "collaborative storytelling" is by definition not a string of past events. Story as "an account, often spoken, of what happened to someone or of how something happened" is just not relevant to this discussion.

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

Another definition of story: "a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people" - ergo any decision making/any description by GM is story. You describe any NPC to your players - that's STORYTELLING. Go sue Oxford dictionary for having like 8 different "story" definitions.

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

Dunno why. While truly I consider basically any time you speak about politics to be extremely obnoxious (more form, than content wise) I generally appreciate all your historical/worldbuilding posts, and consider them to be top notch RPG-logy.

QuoteBut 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?

I'd say that's vast majority of players I played with. Especially in long run, but then I never run/played like One-Shot of something like Tomb of Horrors, and I'd probably considered it closer to really weird boardgame than RPGs as I know it.

QuoteAnd, 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.

Of course it does. Like "Lord of the Rings" is such powerful thing, because it has powerful both personal and historical backstory that is barely or sometimes at all revealed in books, and only later when you read "Silmarillion" and other books you're like: ooooooh! The problem is with overly complicated, snowflakey backstory, another clones of Drizzt Do'Urden. But otherwise even if given events from past, won't float directly they will inform player better who their characters are and enrich their roleplaying. (And of course always good string to sometimes pull).

QuoteMind 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.

Nothing more breaking immersion in game, than suddenly on session 88 learning you had two older brothers that taught you mud wrestling so you know how randomly rolled advantage on mud wrestling rolls.

QuoteI'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.

THIS.

QuoteExactly 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.

As I said above at least one definition above quite clearly states that gameplay is telling a story in itself. That does not mean railroading - many novelist write their novels not knowing how this all shit gonna end, just going with the flow, and of course railroading is unecessary. But let's say if as DM I know one PC's hates Alzatzians because armies of NecroEmperor of Alsace and Allemania plundered his village when he was teenager, I may give some opportunities for party and given PC to engage with this topic along way if it's within realms of possibility, and obviously not pushing given player. This is chance for character arc, not writting it down beforehand.

And if he dies before, or just get busy with different shit - fine also.

Nevertheless taking this hatred into account, and letting it to appear in game - is IMHO specifically narrative/storytelling and not gaming aspect of DM's job.

QuoteNo, because - at least in AD&D1e, which is the only one that counts - not only could he not be a cleric, he couldn't be a wizard, because Charisma 5 - "here or lower the character can only be an assassin." And he doesn't have the stats to be an assassin. Your character is an NPC 0-level something or other, forget about him, roll again.

Such ridiculous limitations are precisely why AD&D 1e is only one that specifically does not counts. But even if it counted - well suck it Gary - I have your rulings over rules amulet, and I will reverse any stupid rules you wrote down about unCharismatic Wizards and Priests. Duh. WIZARD IT IS.
Or dammit - let's be even more wonky and reverse 3e Theurge to 1e to making him Wizard/Priest.

QuoteYou are of course correct that "story" is something we make up after play, where we take the confused mess of more-or-less random events and pretend they're somehow connected.

As per Oxford dictionary - those random elements still become story when spoken. Pretending to make it more clean narrative are irrelevant.

QuoteWell they are unless your just telling viniets. A story is the condensed retelling of a bunch of stuff happening one after another to focus in on some element and make it smoother.

That's just one of definitions.

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 07, 2021, 09:06:43 AM

QuoteWhat's the story?

SHARK, did not said that rolling character creates a story, he said - you tell your backstory to DM while creating character (which include rolling).
Though of course you can roll backstory - there are systems for that, or big random tables books from Old School times, various systems with backgrounds and so forth.
Some time ago I found three ancient PDFs of Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Modern books who are all about generating backstories. Clunky as old times were, but still very funny to create character from.

Quotehat'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.

Well yes - generally in systems where you roll your characters randomly it's wise and prude to design backstory after randomisation ended.

QuoteI'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.

And here we back to this pointless discussion about story definition. It's kinda obvious that story as used in terms "storygames" or "collaborative storytelling" is by definition not a string of past events. Story as "an account, often spoken, of what happened to someone or of how something happened" is just not relevant to this discussion.

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

Another definition of story: "a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people" - ergo any decision making/any description by GM is story. You describe any NPC to your players - that's STORYTELLING. Go sue Oxford dictionary for having like 8 different "story" definitions.

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

Dunno why. While truly I consider basically any time you speak about politics to be extremely obnoxious (more form, than content wise) I generally appreciate all your historical/worldbuilding posts, and consider them to be top notch RPG-logy.

QuoteBut 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?

I'd say that's vast majority of players I played with. Especially in long run, but then I never run/played like One-Shot of something like Tomb of Horrors, and I'd probably considered it closer to really weird boardgame than RPGs as I know it.

QuoteAnd, 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.

Of course it does. Like "Lord of the Rings" is such powerful thing, because it has powerful both personal and historical backstory that is barely or sometimes at all revealed in books, and only later when you read "Silmarillion" and other books you're like: ooooooh! The problem is with overly complicated, snowflakey backstory, another clones of Drizzt Do'Urden. But otherwise even if given events from past, won't float directly they will inform player better who their characters are and enrich their roleplaying. (And of course always good string to sometimes pull).

QuoteMind 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.

Nothing more breaking immersion in game, than suddenly on session 88 learning you had two older brothers that taught you mud wrestling so you know how randomly rolled advantage on mud wrestling rolls.

QuoteI'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.

THIS.

QuoteExactly 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.

As I said above at least one definition above quite clearly states that gameplay is telling a story in itself. That does not mean railroading - many novelist write their novels not knowing how this all shit gonna end, just going with the flow, and of course railroading is unecessary. But let's say if as DM I know one PC's hates Alzatzians because armies of NecroEmperor of Alsace and Allemania plundered his village when he was teenager, I may give some opportunities for party and given PC to engage with this topic along way if it's within realms of possibility, and obviously not pushing given player. This is chance for character arc, not writting it down beforehand.

And if he dies before, or just get busy with different shit - fine also.

Nevertheless taking this hatred into account, and letting it to appear in game - is IMHO specifically narrative/storytelling and not gaming aspect of DM's job.

QuoteNo, because - at least in AD&D1e, which is the only one that counts - not only could he not be a cleric, he couldn't be a wizard, because Charisma 5 - "here or lower the character can only be an assassin." And he doesn't have the stats to be an assassin. Your character is an NPC 0-level something or other, forget about him, roll again.

Such ridiculous limitations are precisely why AD&D 1e is only one that specifically does not counts. But even if it counted - well suck it Gary - I have your rulings over rules amulet, and I will reverse any stupid rules you wrote down about unCharismatic Wizards and Priests. Duh. WIZARD IT IS.
Or dammit - let's be even more wonky and reverse 3e Theurge to 1e to making him Wizard/Priest.

QuoteYou are of course correct that "story" is something we make up after play, where we take the confused mess of more-or-less random events and pretend they're somehow connected.

As per Oxford dictionary - those random elements still become story when spoken. Pretending to make it more clean narrative are irrelevant.

QuoteWell they are unless your just telling viniets. A story is the condensed retelling of a bunch of stuff happening one after another to focus in on some element and make it smoother.

That's just one of definitions.

Greetings!

Thank you, Wrath of God. I am glad that you enjoy so many f my writings and crazy posts.

Indeed, I also think that there is a broader definition or broader deinitions to "storytelling" than what a lot of people somehow seem to believe. STORY embraces much more than whatever the fuck you do with the rest of the adventuring group in the dungeon. I don't know why this concept is so difficult for some people to understand. There are *stories* for every individual player character--apart from, and different from--whatever they are doing with the rest of the group. Their entire identity is not summed up as an appendage of the group. They have separate friends, associates, lovers, relatives and family members--as well as potentially rivals or enemies that they too, are entirely separate from the fucking *group*. Literally *years* before the group of players begin their own journeys, their own stories, each player character was living and experiencing their own, separate story.

Yes, that very personal and individualized story may not be entirely important or meaningful or interesting to the other Player Characters--but they are certainly meaningful to the individual player in question. In addition to how impactful such stories and foundations are for the individual player--these things may in fact, be very interesting, meaningful, and entertaining to others, in varying degrees. You don't know until you try, and until you actually think about it and put some effort into actually creating an interesting, realistic, and dynamic background for your character.

Good stuff, Wrath of God.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

QuoteIndeed, I also think that there is a broader definition or broader deinitions to "storytelling" than what a lot of people somehow seem to believe. STORY embraces much more than whatever the fuck you do with the rest of the adventuring group in the dungeon. I don't know why this concept is so difficult for some people to understand. There are *stories* for every individual player character--apart from, and different from--whatever they are doing with the rest of the group. Their entire identity is not summed up as an appendage of the group. They have separate friends, associates, lovers, relatives and family members--as well as potentially rivals or enemies that they too, are entirely separate from the fucking *group*. Literally *years* before the group of players begin their own journeys, their own stories, each player character was living and experiencing their own, separate story.

Yes, that very personal and individualized story may not be entirely important or meaningful or interesting to the other Player Characters--but they are certainly meaningful to the individual player in question. In addition to how impactful such stories and foundations are for the individual player--these things may in fact, be very interesting, meaningful, and entertaining to others, in varying degrees. You don't know until you try, and until you actually think about it and put some effort into actually creating an interesting, realistic, and dynamic background for your character

Agree completely.
But even besides it - if novelist is writing the novel, but he does not have a plan forward, but goes from scene to scene - puts his character and world, and himself as author - IN SITUATION - without knowing result, and then start to combine how to solve it - is it storytelling or situation. Seems like kinda irrelevant difference.
Non-RPG storygames like Fiasco or Microscope, or even heavily narrative RPGs like whole PBTA family, they do not opperate under notion that story is something written in stone. Story is something that will happen, and nature of specific game is to resolve what will happen, and eventually enforce some sort of genre of structure - I mean such genre enforcing element is for instance old rule Gold for XP. It's meant to provoke players to seek specific type of adventures - therefore enforcing genre.

So the true question is whether there is some balance of control between players assumed, or is GM dominating other players to point where they are helpless ragdolls on a ride. And on the other hand are games used properly with their notion. There are games with heavier narrative structures that can enforce some character arcs. But these days - for which I will preemptively blame Critical Role - it seems newbies are trying to put every possible type of game into 5e, with terrible results. (I see once someone asking for conversion of Call of Cthulhu into 5e and I think I could get some minor metastasis from it).

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 07, 2021, 11:24:29 AM

QuoteIndeed, I also think that there is a broader definition or broader deinitions to "storytelling" than what a lot of people somehow seem to believe. STORY embraces much more than whatever the fuck you do with the rest of the adventuring group in the dungeon. I don't know why this concept is so difficult for some people to understand. There are *stories* for every individual player character--apart from, and different from--whatever they are doing with the rest of the group. Their entire identity is not summed up as an appendage of the group. They have separate friends, associates, lovers, relatives and family members--as well as potentially rivals or enemies that they too, are entirely separate from the fucking *group*. Literally *years* before the group of players begin their own journeys, their own stories, each player character was living and experiencing their own, separate story.

Yes, that very personal and individualized story may not be entirely important or meaningful or interesting to the other Player Characters--but they are certainly meaningful to the individual player in question. In addition to how impactful such stories and foundations are for the individual player--these things may in fact, be very interesting, meaningful, and entertaining to others, in varying degrees. You don't know until you try, and until you actually think about it and put some effort into actually creating an interesting, realistic, and dynamic background for your character

Agree completely.
But even besides it - if novelist is writing the novel, but he does not have a plan forward, but goes from scene to scene - puts his character and world, and himself as author - IN SITUATION - without knowing result, and then start to combine how to solve it - is it storytelling or situation. Seems like kinda irrelevant difference.
Non-RPG storygames like Fiasco or Microscope, or even heavily narrative RPGs like whole PBTA family, they do not opperate under notion that story is something written in stone. Story is something that will happen, and nature of specific game is to resolve what will happen, and eventually enforce some sort of genre of structure - I mean such genre enforcing element is for instance old rule Gold for XP. It's meant to provoke players to seek specific type of adventures - therefore enforcing genre.

So the true question is whether there is some balance of control between players assumed, or is GM dominating other players to point where they are helpless ragdolls on a ride. And on the other hand are games used properly with their notion. There are games with heavier narrative structures that can enforce some character arcs. But these days - for which I will preemptively blame Critical Role - it seems newbies are trying to put every possible type of game into 5e, with terrible results. (I see once someone asking for conversion of Call of Cthulhu into 5e and I think I could get some minor metastasis from it).

Because the characters in his novel can do things the author didn't expect them to do...

Players have the control of their PCs, the GM has the control of the World. PCs react to the World and in return the World reacts to the PCs. Unless you're railroading the players into your story they most certainly aren't "helpless ragdolls on a ride".

The only stories should be those the group tells AFTERWARDS, about what happened in the game. Just like you don't go fishing to tell a fishing story.

I don't have much experience GMing, but I prefer my stories to be cinematic. As someone who has terrible luck, I can see the appeal in the GM giving you a few freebies. I'm especially adverse to things where your death ends up ultimately being totally outside your control (which is why I'm adverse to instant death traps/attacks) so I might let the player live if say, the very first enemy they fight wins initiative and manages to One Hit Kill them on their first attack.

The other issue is that I feel it disrupts the flow of the story to go through many characters. Starts to strain belief when you've got the fifth PC to join a group in as many adventures after your characters keep horribly dying to critical hits. If a character is going to die, I want to at least let them go out in a blaze of glory.

As opposed to some people here, I don't think contriving situations where everyone can shine is a novel concept. Kevin Siembada said as much in the Rifts Ultimate Edition handbook, and to call him anything but old school is simply incorrect. I do, however, disagree with removing any and all risk. I also realize that my luck is incredibly poor, and that other people probably have it better (two people in my group are known for having ridiculously good luck at certain points). As a player, I can recognize the frustration at being the only one who doesn't shine. There's a big difference between giving everyone an opportunity to rock and contriving it.

As with anything, I think there's opportunity for story. Did your GM twist fate a few times by letting you live? Make it so your BBEG gets that advantage as many times. Did your party's wizard die? He comes back to life, but now you've got a powerful necromancer loan-shark who brought him back telling you in no uncertain terms that if you don't pay him back, your entire party will spend the rest of eternity trapped inside his black sapphire he uses to punish those who default on their loans.

Quote from: PsyXypher on November 07, 2021, 12:40:40 PM
I don't have much experience GMing, but I prefer my stories to be cinematic. As someone who has terrible luck, I can see the appeal in the GM giving you a few freebies. I'm especially adverse to things where your death ends up ultimately being totally outside your control (which is why I'm adverse to instant death traps/attacks) so I might let the player live if say, the very first enemy they fight wins initiative and manages to One Hit Kill them on their first attack.

The other issue is that I feel it disrupts the flow of the story to go through many characters. Starts to strain belief when you've got the fifth PC to join a group in as many adventures after your characters keep horribly dying to critical hits. If a character is going to die, I want to at least let them go out in a blaze of glory.

As opposed to some people here, I don't think contriving situations where everyone can shine is a novel concept. Kevin Siembada said as much in the Rifts Ultimate Edition handbook, and to call him anything but old school is simply incorrect. I do, however, disagree with removing any and all risk. I also realize that my luck is incredibly poor, and that other people probably have it better (two people in my group are known for having ridiculously good luck at certain points). As a player, I can recognize the frustration at being the only one who doesn't shine. There's a big difference between giving everyone an opportunity to rock and contriving it.

As with anything, I think there's opportunity for story. Did your GM twist fate a few times by letting you live? Make it so your BBEG gets that advantage as many times. Did your party's wizard die? He comes back to life, but now you've got a powerful necromancer loan-shark who brought him back telling you in no uncertain terms that if you don't pay him back, your entire party will spend the rest of eternity trapped inside his black sapphire he uses to punish those who default on their loans.

If you're my GM and I find you've been fudging rolls/situations to go easy on me and/or givving me freebies...

What guarantee do I have it was me who achieved anything?

Let me reverse the situation, the DM in my current AD&D2e campaign is infamous for not being able to roll average much less above average...

Should we the players go easy on him and let him have a few freebies?

We've killed tons and tons of his characters, famously a Hydra with a few giant leeches. We believe him because we see his rolls, we know he has such bad luck he can never have a good roll. And when his monsters have good HP we know his wife helped him to roll for them.

And still we've lost one PC and 3 follower NPCs because of our poor decisions (the 3 NPCs were my fault for playing partly drunk).

And if we've survived it hasn't been thanks to his lousy rolls, but because of our creative playing (Cast reduce on a Giant so our Halfling can kill it in melee).

Fudging rolls, giving freebies = Pay to Win on video games. Thanks but no thanks it's not for me.

QuoteBecause the characters in his novel can do things the author didn't expect them to do...

In fact... yes. It's common syndrom of writers especially those liking to go deep into psychologies of characters, that they stop being cooperative. Their little microsimulations in writers brain starts running amok, against bigger simulaitons of overreaching plot.

QuotePlayers have the control of their PCs, the GM has the control of the World. PCs react to the World and in return the World reacts to the PCs. Unless you're railroading the players into your story they most certainly aren't "helpless ragdolls on a ride".

I most definitely commented upon railroading here. Now of course control of PCs vs World also differes from game to game.

QuoteThe only stories should be those the group tells AFTERWARDS, about what happened in the game. Just like you don't go fishing to tell a fishing story.

As I said Oxford dictionary says that any description of fictional events or persons or places is STORY. When you play a game, then everything aside of side banter and eventual rule clarifications is precisely this. Any time PC is describing his character actions - he is telling the story - by describing fictional events taking place in imaginary word. Every time GM describes NPC to players - its =piece of story. And so on, and so on.

QuoteI don't have much experience GMing, but I prefer my stories to be cinematic. As someone who has terrible luck, I can see the appeal in the GM giving you a few freebies. I'm especially adverse to things where your death ends up ultimately being totally outside your control (which is why I'm adverse to instant death traps/attacks) so I might let the player live if say, the very first enemy they fight wins initiative and manages to One Hit Kill them on their first attack.

That's a matter of picking proper system for cinematic antiques and bigger than life heroes. D&D generally speaking neither in OSR survival-exploration fantasy neighter in later Wuxia Tolkien incarnation is not system for such games.

QuoteThe other issue is that I feel it disrupts the flow of the story to go through many characters. Starts to strain belief when you've got the fifth PC to join a group in as many adventures after your characters keep horribly dying to critical hits. If a character is going to die, I want to at least let them go out in a blaze of glory.

Generally from what I heard and experienced most of tables had a problems to get coherent reason for Rooster A to work together, not to mention fifth re-rolls.

QuoteIf you're my GM and I find you've been fudging rolls/situations to go easy on me and/or givving me freebies...

What guarantee do I have it was me who achieved anything?

You never was achieving anything. Unless it's fucking chess. When it's dice roll - then it's just fate, and it's not more your achievement than GM's pure fiat without any rolling.

QuoteLet me reverse the situation, the DM in my current AD&D2e campaign is infamous for not being able to roll average much less above average...

Should we the players go easy on him and let him have a few freebies?

May be. But GM already have freebies in form of stronger monsters to neutralize his average rolls.

QuoteFudging rolls, giving freebies = Pay to Win on video games. Thanks but no thanks it's not for me.

Fudging rolls generally is bad method. (Better not roll and all and just decide by yourself.) But there are multiple games giving players various freebies. Fate points, luck points, carma points go figure.

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 07, 2021, 06:25:37 PM

QuoteBecause the characters in his novel can do things the author didn't expect them to do...

In fact... yes. It's common syndrom of writers especially those liking to go deep into psychologies of characters, that they stop being cooperative. Their little microsimulations in writers brain starts running amok, against bigger simulaitons of overreaching plot.

QuotePlayers have the control of their PCs, the GM has the control of the World. PCs react to the World and in return the World reacts to the PCs. Unless you're railroading the players into your story they most certainly aren't "helpless ragdolls on a ride".

I most definitely commented upon railroading here. Now of course control of PCs vs World also differes from game to game.

QuoteThe only stories should be those the group tells AFTERWARDS, about what happened in the game. Just like you don't go fishing to tell a fishing story.

As I said Oxford dictionary says that any description of fictional events or persons or places is STORY. When you play a game, then everything aside of side banter and eventual rule clarifications is precisely this. Any time PC is describing his character actions - he is telling the story - by describing fictional events taking place in imaginary word. Every time GM describes NPC to players - its =piece of story. And so on, and so on.

QuoteI don't have much experience GMing, but I prefer my stories to be cinematic. As someone who has terrible luck, I can see the appeal in the GM giving you a few freebies. I'm especially adverse to things where your death ends up ultimately being totally outside your control (which is why I'm adverse to instant death traps/attacks) so I might let the player live if say, the very first enemy they fight wins initiative and manages to One Hit Kill them on their first attack.

That's a matter of picking proper system for cinematic antiques and bigger than life heroes. D&D generally speaking neither in OSR survival-exploration fantasy neighter in later Wuxia Tolkien incarnation is not system for such games.

QuoteThe other issue is that I feel it disrupts the flow of the story to go through many characters. Starts to strain belief when you've got the fifth PC to join a group in as many adventures after your characters keep horribly dying to critical hits. If a character is going to die, I want to at least let them go out in a blaze of glory.

Generally from what I heard and experienced most of tables had a problems to get coherent reason for Rooster A to work together, not to mention fifth re-rolls.

QuoteIf you're my GM and I find you've been fudging rolls/situations to go easy on me and/or givving me freebies...

What guarantee do I have it was me who achieved anything?

You never was achieving anything. Unless it's fucking chess. When it's dice roll - then it's just fate, and it's not more your achievement than GM's pure fiat without any rolling.

QuoteLet me reverse the situation, the DM in my current AD&D2e campaign is infamous for not being able to roll average much less above average...

Should we the players go easy on him and let him have a few freebies?

May be. But GM already have freebies in form of stronger monsters to neutralize his average rolls.

QuoteFudging rolls, giving freebies = Pay to Win on video games. Thanks but no thanks it's not for me.

Fudging rolls generally is bad method. (Better not roll and all and just decide by yourself.) But there are multiple games giving players various freebies. Fate points, luck points, carma points go figure.

Bolding mine

Semantic games to win an argument? You know damn well what people are saying when they speak about story in RPGs, and yet here you are being disingenuous.

Bye, not gonna waste my time with you anymore.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on November 07, 2021, 01:31:21 PM

If you're my GM and I find you've been fudging rolls/situations to go easy on me and/or givving me freebies...

What guarantee do I have it was me who achieved anything?

Let me reverse the situation, the DM in my current AD&D2e campaign is infamous for not being able to roll average much less above average...

Should we the players go easy on him and let him have a few freebies?

We've killed tons and tons of his characters, famously a Hydra with a few giant leeches. We believe him because we see his rolls, we know he has such bad luck he can never have a good roll. And when his monsters have good HP we know his wife helped him to roll for them.

And still we've lost one PC and 3 follower NPCs because of our poor decisions (the 3 NPCs were my fault for playing partly drunk).

And if we've survived it hasn't been thanks to his lousy rolls, but because of our creative playing (Cast reduce on a Giant so our Halfling can kill it in melee).

Fudging rolls, giving freebies = Pay to Win on video games. Thanks but no thanks it's not for me.

Fair points all around.

To answer your first question; I generally don't hide rolls. If I throw you a bone, I'd be clear about that. You're free to refuse it.

What I have in my mind is seeing the fighter get slain by a lucky crit from a goblin and me saying "Okay, we just started the campaign five minutes ago and I don't want you sitting there for the next two hours not playing". So you find a way to preserve drama. He's not dead, but his teammates need to get the hell out of this Goblin cave. Or maybe just say that if his teammates can get him a healing potion in a round he'll be fine. One of my former GMs had that rule.

I personally don't think it's enjoyable for the players or the GM to see a person put lots of work into a character and then have them killed unceremoniously in the first session.

But, what's important here, is that my example is from right out of the gate. I'd rather not have the momentum of the campaign crunched into pieces because half the party was killed by a failed Balance check (something that happened in another campaign. That was funny, honestly). But, and this is a sticking point, if you just make it so the PCs can't die, that's just boring. There's no risk involved. But if the PCs have been alive for a bit, gained a few levels, I'm probably not going to keep them alive. And ESPECIALLY not if they do something really stupid.

When I think of "telling a story" Tabletop RPG wise, I don't think of a rigid structure that the PCs have to follow, and that they should be adjusted when they act out of line. Rather, I think "How can I generate more conflict and keep things going?"

An example would involve a battle with a hydra (since it's stuck in my head now) and it eats one of the PCs in a single gulp. My "Freebie" to that player is going to be that the Hydra left enough behind in order to revive him. You can make a hundred plots out of that; do they have enough money to spare to revive him? Do they need to go into debt? Are they gonna take that Necromancer up on that offer to revive him (and thus risk going into debt with the Necromancer Mafia?). Even then, losing a level (if you're playing 3.5, at least) sucks ass. But being at higher levels allows you access to more resources, something a character at lower levels doesn't really have.

Still, you make a good point. If you're going to save the PCs, do it sparingly or else every victory feels hollow.

Quote from: PsyXypher on November 07, 2021, 07:49:19 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on November 07, 2021, 01:31:21 PM

If you're my GM and I find you've been fudging rolls/situations to go easy on me and/or givving me freebies...

What guarantee do I have it was me who achieved anything?

Let me reverse the situation, the DM in my current AD&D2e campaign is infamous for not being able to roll average much less above average...

Should we the players go easy on him and let him have a few freebies?

We've killed tons and tons of his characters, famously a Hydra with a few giant leeches. We believe him because we see his rolls, we know he has such bad luck he can never have a good roll. And when his monsters have good HP we know his wife helped him to roll for them.

And still we've lost one PC and 3 follower NPCs because of our poor decisions (the 3 NPCs were my fault for playing partly drunk).

And if we've survived it hasn't been thanks to his lousy rolls, but because of our creative playing (Cast reduce on a Giant so our Halfling can kill it in melee).

Fudging rolls, giving freebies = Pay to Win on video games. Thanks but no thanks it's not for me.

Fair points all around.

To answer your first question; I generally don't hide rolls. If I throw you a bone, I'd be clear about that. You're free to refuse it.

What I have in my mind is seeing the fighter get slain by a lucky crit from a goblin and me saying "Okay, we just started the campaign five minutes ago and I don't want you sitting there for the next two hours not playing". So you find a way to preserve drama. He's not dead, but his teammates need to get the hell out of this Goblin cave. Or maybe just say that if his teammates can get him a healing potion in a round he'll be fine. One of my former GMs had that rule.

I personally don't think it's enjoyable for the players or the GM to see a person put lots of work into a character and then have them killed unceremoniously in the first session.

But, what's important here, is that my example is from right out of the gate. I'd rather not have the momentum of the campaign crunched into pieces because half the party was killed by a failed Balance check (something that happened in another campaign. That was funny, honestly). But, and this is a sticking point, if you just make it so the PCs can't die, that's just boring. There's no risk involved. But if the PCs have been alive for a bit, gained a few levels, I'm probably not going to keep them alive. And ESPECIALLY not if they do something really stupid.

When I think of "telling a story" Tabletop RPG wise, I don't think of a rigid structure that the PCs have to follow, and that they should be adjusted when they act out of line. Rather, I think "How can I generate more conflict and keep things going?"

An example would involve a battle with a hydra (since it's stuck in my head now) and it eats one of the PCs in a single gulp. My "Freebie" to that player is going to be that the Hydra left enough behind in order to revive him. You can make a hundred plots out of that; do they have enough money to spare to revive him? Do they need to go into debt? Are they gonna take that Necromancer up on that offer to revive him (and thus risk going into debt with the Necromancer Mafia?). Even then, losing a level (if you're playing 3.5, at least) sucks ass. But being at higher levels allows you access to more resources, something a character at lower levels doesn't really have.

Still, you make a good point. If you're going to save the PCs, do it sparingly or else every victory feels hollow.

Bolding mine

Okay, so you're talking only about the first adventure? Or not? I'm a bit confused here.

I'm not saying you're "Playing Wrong", I'm saying it's not for me.

Regarding the part I bolded: Blame it to me only playing OSR games AD&D2e being the latest D&D edition I will play and to my DM not allowing backgrounds for any character (If I understand that part about putting work into the character correctly) I don't see where the work comes if it's the first adventure, I might see a case for doing that then especially for new players, but then again, it might become something they will expect from me, so who knows?

Yeah the Almost dead Hydra stuck in my mind too, if only I could remember (or we had recorded the session) how the DM describet it when it came out from the passage/cavern... I casted Monster Summoning 1, giant leeches appear, they kill some fuglies and then I have them attack the Hydra...

And they kill it... We still tell the tale.

Like when our halfling singlehandedly killed a family of Giants, cut off the balls of the father and burned the teens... It was fucking epic! Or our Elf Mage/Thief casting Spectral Force and making it look like a giant Grim Reaper and having several badies die from fear... That was epic too.

Or me playing half drunk, forgetting stone giants magic resistance and casting magic missile on the leader... And having it throw a giant stone that landed on our NPC followers... insta death.

Or our halfling's previous character, a Dwarven fighter, killed by an Ankheg very early on the campaign.

Those are the tales we tell, over and over, not sure if I knew the DM ever gave us a freebie those tales would feel as epic as they do. Even if he sweared up and down those weren't freebies...

But hey, if you and the players are having fun you're playing it right.

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? (Here is the scenario, what do you do about it?

I lean heavily towards situation, but my situations are inspired mainly by stories I've heard/read. So it gets a bit fuzzy at the edges.

There should be at least a little structure. Otherwise it feels like you are just playing a RNG random encounter table.
eg: there are creatures out there doing... something. Better if its specific creatures in specific places. Like "There are ghouls in control of an old abandoned church." or "Goblins raid the local farms every fall." or "This merchant is paying well for people to go out to some ruins and recover a lost family treasure now in the hands of a elf and their minions." and so on.

They can be isolated, or interconnected.

Or you can run big sweeping epics like some old TSR module chains that have a baser plot. But the PCs can approach it from whatever angle they want.