Advice for new "story now" GMs

[Lanefan]

What I have experienced is uneven implementation where my PC's goals were at least incorporated into play up to a certain point, but then things would just go suddenly left turn off into whatever the GM felt like doing or die on the rocks of some impossible to anticipate unrevealed setting details or something. The process of play in well-designed narrativist games is just different and fundamentally better suited to this kind of play.

The bolded is quite realistic, however.

Simple example: your goal is to become Emperor of Catallia. You're nicely on your way to getting there when Catallia unexpectedly gets invaded by the Deshuanti armies and ends up almost annihilated, with its power structure in ruins.

The GM might have known this was coming for ages but couldn't exactly tell you, without spoilering the campaign, your goal was likely going to end up unattainable due to external factors.

On a broader note, I guess that's a big thing for some as well, including me: we don't like spoilers and we do like being surprised, even if-when that surprise isn't in our favour.

 

[loverdrive]

Simple example: your goal is to become Emperor of Catallia. You're nicely on your way to getting there when Catallia unexpectedly gets invaded by the Deshuanti armies and ends up almost annihilated, with its power structure in ruins.

The GM might have known this was coming for ages but couldn't exactly tell you, without spoilering the campaign, your goal was likely going to end up unattainable due to external factors.

Or GM could have Catalia not being unexpectedly invaded ¯⁠\⁠⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠⁠/⁠¯

 

[hawkeyefan]

The bolded is quite realistic, however.

Simple example: your goal is to become Emperor of Catallia. You're nicely on your way to getting there when Catallia unexpectedly gets invaded by the Deshuanti armies and ends up almost annihilated, with its power structure in ruins.

The GM might have known this was coming for ages but couldn't exactly tell you, without spoilering the campaign, your goal was likely going to end up unattainable due to external factors.

On a broader note, I guess that's a big thing for some as well, including me: we don't like spoilers and we do like being surprised, even if-when that surprise isn't in our favour.

Why would the GM do this? If you have a player whose goal is for their PC to become emperor, and then right before it happens, you have some other country take over… what’s the justification?

“Because it’s realistic” applies to both the takeover and the takeover being denied, so let’s not discuss that. What else could be the reason?

 

[Lanefan]

Why would the GM do this? If you have a player whose goal is for their PC to become emperor, and then right before it happens, you have some other country take over… what’s the justification?

First off, the "right before it happens" is merely unfortunate timing of a locked-in event vs the player's character goals.

“Because it’s realistic” applies to both the takeover and the takeover being denied, so let’s not discuss that. What else could be the reason?

Well, for one thing I want the setting to change and develop in ways not necessarily connected to the PCs, with the purpose of those changes being to provide some variation in the backdrop the PCs operate against. For example, if the PCs have been happily chugging along in peaceful Catallia and suddenly it ain't so peaceful any more then they have to adjust.

At other times, sometimes the big changes are simply long-lasting consequences of PC actions.

An example of the latter from my current game: at one point the PCs managed to knock off the evil Emperor of a particularly nasty nation; and while I always had this in mind as a possibility I never dreamed they'd pull it off so (relatively) soon into the campaign. Result: the power vacuum almost immediately led to a 5-way civil war*, a civil war whose ebbs and flows (barring further influence from the PCs, of which there has since been little if any other than one PC who joined an army unit which then lost every battle it was in) I then had to storyboard out so that if-when any PCs went back there I'd know what was happening when and where and who currently held what parts of the region.

And so, if I've got in mind that (barring PC interference) Catallia will be invaded in the summer of 1087 then a PC adventuring in the 1080s with a goal of becoming Emperor of Catallia by, say, 1090 is probably going to be out of luck. Obviously this becomes irrelevant if the campaign ends in 1085, and just as obviously becomes of very high interest if she somehow gets the throne in 1086.

But maybe the throne-chasing PC will investigate** possible future threats against Catallia, allowing me to introduce or telegraph the planned invasion and thus giving the PCs a chance to - if they want - try to blunt or prevent it; or giving the throne-chaser a chance to change tack and abandon that goal in favour of another.

* - mostly between the slave lords from the A-series.
** - information is valuable, thus if you don't investigate you're unlikely to learn anything beyond the obvious.

I guess what I'm saying is that when people talk about story now there always seems to be a strong corollary implication of story here, where I see both relevance and use in having a backdrop that includes and references story elsewhere.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The bolded is quite realistic, however.

Simple example: your goal is to become Emperor of Catallia. You're nicely on your way to getting there when Catallia unexpectedly gets invaded by the Deshuanti armies and ends up almost annihilated, with its power structure in ruins.

The GM might have known this was coming for ages but couldn't exactly tell you, without spoilering the campaign, your goal was likely going to end up unattainable due to external factors.

On a broader note, I guess that's a big thing for some as well, including me: we don't like spoilers and we do like being surprised, even if-when that surprise isn't in our favour.

Yes he absolutely can tell you! And this is the lesson for GMs who want to run this sort of game, you MUST be transparent!!! There's nothing about trad play either which requires this sort of hidden player sabotage. It's never going to make a better game. Not once, ever. YOU may think it does, but your players most definitely don't, even if they aren't saying it out loud.

This is not to say everything has to be telegraphed every minute of play. Surprise 'oh shirt' moments are fine and they'll surely put success in doubt, but when the GM springs "oh sorry I decided all your plans are crushed" there's a name for that, "d**k move"!

 

[hawkeyefan]

First off, the "right before it happens" is merely unfortunate timing of a locked-in event vs the player's character goals.

“Locked in” how? What determined this event and its timing?

Well, for one thing I want the setting to change and develop in ways not necessarily connected to the PCs, with the purpose of those changes being to provide some variation in the backdrop the PCs operate against. For example, if the PCs have been happily chugging along in peaceful Catallia and suddenly it ain't so peaceful any more then they have to adjust.

I think it’s perfectly fine to have things happen that spur action. But there’s a right and a wrong time for that kind of thing.

To introduce something that thwarts player goals right near their fruition, and to do so simply because “you want” some kind of change… that’s really shady. It reads as total subversion of any agency the players have, with nothing more than GM whim as a reason, though perhaps lampshaded in some way.

 

[kenada]

I used to be pretty big on immersion, but I’ve come to prefer table-facing information with the obvious restriction that the PCs can only act on what they know in the game world. My reasoning is our interface with the game world is pretty limited. No matter how hard we try, the PCs are going to have a fuller experience because they are actually living it. What table-facing information does is provide a shorthand for those kinds of things they’re experiencing. It also serves as a reminder to the GM to make sure the tells the PCs should be seeing actually manifest.

It just doesn’t make sense to me that a nation could be invaded, and somehow the PCs wouldn’t notice it was coming. One of them wants to become the Emperor, and they have no allies (on either side), informants, or anything that could give them a clue? The other nation doesn’t approach the PCs with an offer to back their claim in exchange for future consideration? Do the PCs expect to go on an adventure, find some doodad, and think that will cause them to be crowned Emperor? This is where table-facing information is useful. The impending doom draws nearer. How does that manifest? Well, you’re having a drink with your man on the inside, and he’s got something to tell you ….

 

[Maxperson]

I think that the mechanics of play absolutely impact how the game plays at the table. I absolutely agree that within the many editions/versions of D&D, and how much that core system can be flexed, you can get a range of outcomes in regard to player input and player direction.

I think certain rule sets have more of those sorts of DMs than others, but the problem still is not with the rules themselves, but with the people. Especially the older crowd who cut their teeth on 1e or before.

Much like @prabe describes, I’ve been playing D&D in what’s likely classified as a neo-trad way. And I’ve only leaned into making the game more player facing in recent years.

I've tried that in the last few campaigns that I've run for my players, and they largely ignore the test rules(plot points and such) that would give them more control. At this point I've given up and will just keep the reigns. They seem to want it that way.

But even my most player focused D&D game is less player focused than story now games. It's simply the way the two types of games work.

I agree with this. More player focused doesn't mean that the DMs and players of traditional games are as the other poster described. He was describing a DM issue, rather than something inherent in traditional play.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes he absolutely can tell you! And this is the lesson for GMs who want to run this sort of game, you MUST be transparent!!!

So, spoilers all the way, then. The characters (and by extension the players) know the future of their world as well as its history. Yeah, not gonna fly.

Now if there is no preplanned future - which is, I suspect, where you're leading with this - then fine, bigger-picture events can be made up on the fly. That still doesn't mean those bigger-picture events don't and can't exist, and the guides for some of these games even say as much when referring to what happens off-screen.

There's nothing about trad play either which requires this sort of hidden player sabotage. It's never going to make a better game. Not once, ever. YOU may think it does, but your players most definitely don't, even if they aren't saying it out loud.

This is not to say everything has to be telegraphed every minute of play. Surprise 'oh shirt' moments are fine and they'll surely put success in doubt, but when the GM springs "oh sorry I decided all your plans are crushed" there's a name for that, "d**k move"!

When you phrase it as "oh sorry I decided all your plans are crushed" that phrasing implies the decision was made on the spur of the moment (which I agree would be terrible form). Things like this should be laid out before play even begins and before the GM has any idea what the PCs' goals will be.

And then if-when a PC comes up with a goal that by sheer bad luck is almost certainly doomed by something bigger that will happen, IMO all the GM can do is keep a straight face and carry on, even if inside thinking "this ain't gonna end well". I suspect I-as-player might have been in this very situation for some time now: my characters end goal is to overthrow the faux-Rome republic* and make it an empire, with herself as Empress; but I've a nasty sneaking hunch that nation is going to fall long before I get anywhere near a throne and I ain't entirely sure there's a thing I can do about it: I know what's out there, and I know if it comes for us we can't beat it.

Still, she soldiers on, hoping for the best...

* - very short version of a VERY long story: when she was younger it was an Empire, but due to some cataclysm or other during the campaign the whole nation got punted 250 years back into its own history, to a time when it was still a republic. My character is still in her own "time", however, and thus has a whole bunch of memories of things in her past (and the country's history) that now may or may not happen in the "new" future.

 

[Lanefan]

“Locked in” how? What determined this event and its timing?

The GM when designing the setting before play begins.

I think it’s perfectly fine to have things happen that spur action. But there’s a right and a wrong time for that kind of thing.

To introduce something that thwarts player goals right near their fruition, and to do so simply because “you want” some kind of change… that’s really shady. It reads as total subversion of any agency the players have, with nothing more than GM whim as a reason, though perhaps lampshaded in some way.

You're making the same (wrong) assumption as AbdulAlhazred, that this event is being introduced on a whim. And as I posted before, I agree that doing so on a whim is a bad call.

However, I most certainly don't agree that pre-scheduling some events to happen in the setting on particular dates is a bad call, provided such pre-scheduling is done in complete neutrality and without knowledge of how or even if any PCs will be affected.