Tabletop RPG - Does the story really matter?

[Fightgarr]

Well that's completely dependent on the audience. Some groups are more inclined to certain things, and are certain on that because of years and years of experience with getting more enjoyment out of a particular play style. Its subjective to the group but considering I've been playing for most of my life I'd say that when I'm playing, yes I know what I want. When it comes to my group then yes, we know what we like and we are certain of our story and RP over dice throwing and battle-grids.

 

[WilliamWhite1]

we know what we like and we are certain of our story and RP over dice throwing and battle-grids.

Ah.
I see.
I would imagine some groups to be greatly cohesive, as yours, and I find myself unlucky in my not having a group as uniform. Out of the six, I have only one highly cohesive group, and that is in my university's Gamer's Club. But yes, point taken, perhaps a wide majority of groups will know exactly what they want, and have a GM to provide them with it. Which probably makes for a enviably great game.

 

[Alex_P]

I think good story in a pen-and-paper roleplaying game is collaborative, improvisational, and personal. Anything else isn't worth doing.

-- Alex

 

[Draygen]

I love stories but loathe backstories.

-- Alex

True, I guess my broad sweep did leave a lot of holes. I also prefer progressive storyline rather than extensive backstory, though if the backstory is short and sweet, I'll generally tolerate it. In moral gray games like Whitewolf, its not so much the "kill it because it's evil" mentality, so when you're planning on hurling someone off of a skyscraper, you need more than some dude in a bar's word that he's evil. When I still played it, I got yelled at a lot on a RP-PvP server because I didn't forward my entire backstory to the folks I killed, nor did I give them the opportunity to recite their clan history. Didn't slow me down, but it's still quaint all the same.

My gaming group has 3 iconic examples. My buddy Robert tends towards mixing and matching stats for effectiveness rather than believability. For example, his Doctor/Lawyer Werewolf.

My wife, when she can be bothered to play, has such in depth character creation, she knows how her parents get along with her brother, and has incorperated it into her backstory.

I'm somewhere in the middle. I like a bit of backstory, but all in all I'm wanting to know what we're doing next, not 10 years ago or 10 years from now.

But how will you ever be able to identify with my catgirl half-dragon vampire unless you help her overcome her crippling amnesia???

By accepting the fact that while she wishes she could love me, she has been hurt too many times in the past. She has built a wall that no Elf-Demon Warrior Mage can ever hope to penetrate. If I wish to be close to her, I have to accept that she is cold and lonely, and deal with her moody demeanour.

That Corndog enough?

 

[vede]

For myself, I treat my D&D games like improvisational acting with dice. So yes, story is essential to the game.

The only problem is that other people around me who play treat their games like a video game without the computer, so we end up in conflict.

Fortunately, there's a couple (seriously, just two) people who agree with me.

But I'm digressing now, I think.

Story=good.

 

[WilliamWhite1]

I'm somewhere in the middle. I like a bit of backstory, but all in all I'm wanting to know what we're doing next, not 10 years ago or 10 years from now.

Good spot to be in, if you ask me. Little backstory never hurt anyone. In the words of a colleague, "research could never hurt anyone, but stupidity does."

But how will you ever be able to identify with my catgirl half-dragon vampire unless you help her overcome her crippling amnesia???

She has built a wall that no Elf-Demon Warrior Mage can ever hope to penetrate. If I wish to be close to her, I have to accept that she is cold and lonely, and deal with her moody demeanour.

You deserve an applause. Admittedly, that was good.

 

[Yog Sothoth]

...

Our best bet is to appease the audience, right? The next question I would pose is: are we always sure that the audience knows what it wants?

yes, the players are the GM's 'audience' and if they're not happy, then the game is a bust. don't cater to the masses, cater to your players. if your group wants to hack & slash all the way to level 100, let 'em do it. when they start looking for more meaning behind the XP and loot, be prepared for that, too.

i like your point about the audience not always knowing what they want. many gamers that profess to be role-players will min/max their builds and seek out the uber-loot just like any power gamer. and, as i stated above, power gamers will eventually want something deeper than pure hack & slash.

good GMing is a fine balancing act of all these aspects... by themselves, these differing play styles are largely unsatisfying; it's only when they all come together to form a cohesive whole that they become more than the sum of their parts...

 

[Alex_P]

i like your point about the audience not always knowing what they want. many gamers that profess to be role-players will min/max their builds and seek out the uber-loot just like any power gamer. and, as i stated above, power gamers will eventually want something deeper than pure hack & slash.

To me, that kind of balancing act kinda screams "This game is flawed". If the elements are truly complementary, they should be able to just integrate cleanly without a lot of effort on anybody's part (excepting the game designer). If the elements can't come together nicely, maybe they're incompatible to begin with?

Making a game out of a bunch of disparate elements that don't work well together is an admirable skill, but one that I'd rather avoid having to exercise in the first place.

Now, I expect every game to require some small amount of social compromise, stance-switching, and fine-tuning in play. But if it's not just a trivial thing, then I feel it really means the designers have phoned it in on actually designing the product.

-- Alex

 

[hellthins]

Specific campaigns need a story. It is the life blood of the campaign, what makes it more than a string of combat scenarios. Not to say combat isn't fun, but role playing in your role playing games makes it all the more satisfying. The best stories are the ones involving the people that role played, not the ones that just rolled dice.

As for systems themselves, background is always very nice, but a metastory can be both a boon and a bane. oWoD vamps had a massive on going story about Gehenna. It was nice, it was interesting. It also put a giant clock over the systems saying "Don't get cozy, your immortality has a cut off date." Though if you ignore the Gehenna stuff in your own campaign, then it was more interesting rumors in the vamp community than anything else. Of course every other system in the oWoD had their own little apocalypse story, but the only one that couldn't really avoid it was the Wraith system and that was because it was so central to the motivations of the antagonists.

But going off track, roleplaying is a wonderful spice. If your group absolutely abhors roleplaying and instead just enjoys the combat scenario, then hey. More power to you. But I find, at least personally, my best campaigns have always been the ones that have good stories and where people play characters with at least defined motivations, if not ones different from themselves. And the sessions I remember most are the ones where the roleplaying was the best.

 

[Yog Sothoth]

i like your point about the audience not always knowing what they want. many gamers that profess to be role-players will min/max their builds and seek out the uber-loot just like any power gamer. and, as i stated above, power gamers will eventually want something deeper than pure hack & slash.

To me, that kind of balancing act kinda screams "This game is flawed". If the elements are truly complementary, they should be able to just integrate cleanly without a lot of effort on anybody's part (excepting the game designer). If the elements can't come together nicely, maybe they're incompatible to begin with?

Making a game out of a bunch of disparate elements that don't work well together is an admirable skill, but one that I'd rather avoid having to exercise in the first place.

Now, I expect every game to require some small amount of social compromise, stance-switching, and fine-tuning in play. But if it's not just a trivial thing, then I feel it really means the designers have phoned it in on actually designing the product.

-- Alex

any system is just a framework to build your stories around... you can't depend on it to do everything for you. also, i've never encountered a game that wasn't flawed in one way or another and needed some tinkering and adjusting to suit the needs of the group.

the elements i was speaking of aren't game mechanics per se, but rather play styles that gamers adopt. it's the GM's job to bring these disparate elements together when they exist, and forge something that appeals to all members of the group...

 

[Knight Templar]

Its the whole point for me, my group, not so much apart from the DM.

 

[Cleverpun]

As has been said, it really all comes down to the group. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlayerArchetypes The Player Archetypes each represent something that somebody wants to get from the game: why they play it really. When an entire group is all one or another, suiting the game to their wants is easy, but when, say, you have two Thespians, a Munchkin, and three Real Men (see the article) then working out a balance that's enjoyable for everyone can be very difficult. And if the GM has their own goals for entertainment, then things can get choppy at times.
This is probably one of the reasons so very many TTRPGs exist, in that they are each trying to cater to a different type or group of types.

For the record, most of the TTRPGs I've participated in were with friends, and we were screwing around as much as anything. Damn +1 floor mat...

 

[elricik]

The story and system of a RP need to both be top notch to make the RP good [...] if the stories not good then why play the game? For the system? That seems pointless to me.

I agree on that a great story can make the system highly invigorating to participate in. Believe me; I advocate good storyline whenever I can get the chance -- the tabletops are much more than mediums of using games. It just appears to me, from an experimenter's perspective, that the gaming community seems to make up a wide percent of these 'party goers,' if you will.

But I do see your point, and I definitely agree. It's just that, it seems like for some, the tabletop could be as addicting as Pac Man (no story, just game = huge success?). Perhaps it's just my audience...it's always a possibility.

If thats your theory go ahead and try, who knows it could be a complete success. Or if you still want a story but you want to focus on the system, why don't you just concentrate on making the system and take a story from a role playing forum. Theirs a chance everyone your playing with will think you came up with it.

 

[magic8BALL]

Rule of thumb:
If there's so much talking people are bored, roll some dice.
If there's so much rolling people are bored, tell some story.

I have to disagree with you. I believe the story is more important, as best TT-RPG's i've played included no rolls or very few.

...so if people are bored with the story... you'd tell it to them more..?

I don't understand. Stop me if I'm wrong, but most people play role playing games to have fun with friends, be part of some sort of fantasy world and let the crule fates of chance help shape how the story goes.

If you're a story loving DM, and your PC's are ruining the story line, write a book instead.
If your a Player who wants to beet down on a few beasties without any care for storyline, there are a bunch of flash games on the internet.
Role playing games are in between these two extremes and flexable: that's all I'm saying.

I can understand that some people may prefer a story intese gaming session and others a roll-a-thon, what I don't really get is how people think there is a right way and a wrong way: as far as I can tell every gaming group will have a different preference and that's it. This may even change depending on the mood of the group in that particular session!

 

[AntiAntagonist]

As unintelligent as I am, I'd like to pose a good question to those who subscribe to these tabletop RPGs, and in the hopes that I can gather some solid evidence from you, the masses on the Escapist.

*For the general question, skip to the bottom.

I'm sure all of you know what a tabletop, paper-and-pencil RPG is. Those who have subscribed to Unforgotten Realms can get a pretty good idea of what it's like; most may be fine-tuned in the Dungeons and Dragons realm, and I can assuredly respect that. Deviations and stone-cold fanboys alike, all I can contemplate and respect. In the past, my friends (and some colleagues) have tried their hands at deviating from the traditional DND, dice-rolling, strategy-creating craft and have attempted to make something different from the traditional quest-quest-quest mantra. Wrath2142 from SA has created a tabletop much like DND, in a different realm, an established storyline, and et cetera. Unlike he, Kaesoflare from SA has taken a storyline (Pokemon) and created an alternate storyline to base his dice-rolling adventure on, and has dragged us all into it. I have made a game with virtually no storyline, called Gunzone, which has proven successful on account of appealing to the MMORPG fan-catcher: the grinding system.

What I've realized is that true roleplayers take the campaigns into very little consideration, because they could delve into stories by reading books or joining roleplaying forums. Understandably, a campaign in which the game could consist of fifty-percent turn-based gaming may not appeal to a roleplayer, unless this person is also a gamer, but bear with me in the fact that it would appear most campaign-makers and players focus a lot on making a formidable, awe-worthy battle system. Roleplayers love storyline, but it would appear that when gamers try to throw storyline into the mix, they focus on it very little, and create that battle system that really catches their attention. Mixed audiences are confused as to what the point is: gamers want to skip storyline and focus on the game, whereas roleplayers want the storyline and couldn't care less about the game, unless the game somehow has a large effect on a riveting storyline.

My success in being a DNDD (dungeons and dragons deviation) GM spouts from my ability, as a gamer, to create an unorthodox battle system involving many D6 and allowing plenty of players to incorporate mass strategy into grinding. I even host some events for 2x experience, or 40% off market prices, all on a tabletop RPG with no established story. They make their own, and it becomes hilarious to them.

The question is simply this:

Should tabletop RPG creators, from DNDD GMs to entirely new simulators, focus on storyline, when it's not necessary? I've taken the affirmative by stating that storyline makes little difference: it is my belief that, unless the audience is composed 100% of hardcore roleplayers or a hybrid of roleplayer-gamers, the RP in the G is much overrated.

As others in the thread have mentioned there is a definite division between people that love to roll dice and people that love to act out their characters. For the sake of brevity I tend to use 2 terms: rollplayer and roleplayer. Unfortunately they are sometimes used in a derogatory fashion, but they are brief and descriptive when used comparatively.

In response to whether a story is important: HELL YES it's important! While there are those that slog through a dungeon for phat lootz it gets boring quickly for some. Roleplayers have the opportunity to explore alternate paths without firing a shot. I've had games where I can win or totally bypass major combat by saying a few words in character. There have been games where due to a character backstory an entire campaign will turn on a dime.

Personally I find that without some roleplaying combat gets monotonous and boring as I get (& have been) railroaded from one scene to another. However too much roleplay gets me feeling out of focus as I need some amount of mechanics to show that I have progressed and not simply moved laterally through the world.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

Story is very important, but it has to be well written and gripping or else it will just bore the people. Without story the game becomes a 'hack and slash' and you know what: Computers are better at doing hack and slash adventures! If I want that style of game play where it is just fighting endless monsters, where half the skills in the game are useless and better off stripped, then I will pick up NWN or something like that and replay.

No, story is meant to be the backbone of any good RPG and table top it is even more important then the fighting. Cause lets face it, the fighting really is nothing more then random chance and dice rolling. Progressing the story, and even better making the DM's head explode as you take it down a completely different track, is far more fun then just rolling dice.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I would honestly say no myself. If you have a good selection of scenarios, well played characters and some really fun interaction the overall story doesn't really matter as long as the individual events are good. Everytime I've actually tried to tell a "story" that wasn't immediately driven by the players I've failed.

Though I hear it's good when it works out.

 

[Alex_P]

As others in the thread have mentioned there is a definite division between people that love to roll dice and people that love to act out their characters.

I think that particular division impedes effective game-playing and game-writing.

"Roleplaying" isn't one blob of stuff and it certainly shouldn't be reduced to "in-character acting" -- even though we still see this definition all the time on forums and even in game books. The GM writing down the plot before the game begins isn't doing the same thing that the GM who never even thinks about the game except during play is doing. The guy talking to shopkeepers isn't necessarily participating in "creating a story" -- nor is he necessarily going to find that interesting. The person playing for "deep immersion" is doing something different from the person playing to create a "thematic story".

I'm sure it's just as messy for "rollplayers", too, though I care less about that. Still, it's important to note that the vast majority of munchkins or godmoders or whatever are invested in the fiction -- finding Excalibur and riding dragons and having your own space castle is an essential part of their "I win". Most self-described "powergamers" or "tacticians" definitely seem to care about the fiction, too.

Now, it can be useful, on occasion, to speak of character-driven decisions motivating game-mechanical choices vs. game-mechanical choices motivating character-driven decisions. But, ideally, you should be writing a game where these aren't in opposition. Following the game mechanics should help build interesting characterization and interesting characterization should translate into game-mechanical effectiveness. Forcing you to choose between having an interesting character or a useful game token is terrible game design.

-- Alex

 

[Ignatius87]

Well, I can speak from some experience here as I am the GM for a group of friends of mine for shadowrun, another table top game (the shadowrun shooting game is loosely based on the world where this game takes place). I've done DnD a lot as well, but my friends and I like shadowrun a lot more, primarily for the reasons the OP described. There is much less focus on doing quests, grinding experience, and accumulating gear. In fact, there is no level system in shadowrun at all. You build your character with a point system, choosing whatever skills, attributes, and abilities you want (rather than picking a pre-defined class). Then, as you do jobs, your character gains karma, which allows them to increase those skills or attributes.

Anyway, I agree with the fact that if the GM is just walking the players through a story line, it's very boring. I occasionally throw in an event that the players have no control over, but this is only to keep the game going, I try to avoid it as much as possible. A big part of being a good GM is improvisation and adapting your story to what the players do. That way, the players' decisions actually effect the world around them, which is something I think is the most appealing about this style of game. No matter how imaginative a video game designer gets, it's no match for the creativity and imagination that can go on in a game that is occurring purely on paper and in the heads of its players.

 

[Flying-Emu]

To me the "mechanics" of any tabletop rpg boils down to rolling dice...not a whole lot of fun to me, but the most fun I ever had was with a GM who changed his story based on the actions of our characters and we could tell what we had our characters doing made a difference in the world that he had created. Other GM's I had played with made it un-fun simply by telling the story the way he had written it no matter what we did.

This is truth.

Without a GM with only the layout of a story complete, you don't get the flexibility required to make the story entertaining. However, only GMs with a quick mind and silver tongue can pull it off well, since they have to be willing to fly off of the seat of their pants 90% of the time. Unless you plan out every possible path the people may take.

But then, they'll just take the one path that you didn't think of. This is the game.