Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

[kyoryu]

• "Classic" Sandbox/Dungeoncrawl. The GM creates the world and the players explore it (common in the OSR)
• The game has a world and a plot. Both created by the GM.
• Shared authority. Common among Indygames/Storygames.

Eh, I think there's room for a non-railroad plot without delving into the shared authority space. It's certainly how I try to run a lot of games.

The third is what's being advocated by the big name DMs. But here's the kicker. Sharing authority requires negotiation - and D&D has almost no tools to do so. It doesn't have the aspects of Fate, the ties to the world of Dungeon World or Blades in the Dark, or the guidance of those games. And the guidance such as there is tends to be poor.

Or "set up a situation, and respond to it". That doesn't require authority, and doesn't need to be hack and slash.

This means that for a new D&D DM to manage the more collaborative playstyle they more or less have to invent the tools (like the session zero, means for the players to endow, fast improv statblocks, scene handling mechanics, character arcs that are highlighted by the rules, etc.) by themselves.

Not all of these are required (you don't need scene handling mechanics, or character arcs highlighted by the rules). You do need fast improv - but that predates the current "narrative" games and really goes back to old school games. Heck, even Apocalypse World, which is in many ways the poster child for narrative games, doesn't have a lot of these.

Some do - but most don't in part because the books barely even hint they are possible and instead publish adventure paths that imply that the GM dictates the plot.

Adventure Paths rely on the "GM (or the publisher) writes the story" model because that's the only way their business model works. If you don't know (within a fairly reasonable degree) the state of the important bits of the world after the first module, how can you write the second?

[Yora]

Fundamentally I am aware of three basic ways of running a non-GMless RPG.

• "Classic" Sandbox/Dungeoncrawl. The GM creates the world and the players explore it (common in the OSR)
• The game has a world and a plot. Both created by the GM.
• Shared authority. Common among Indygames/Storygames.

People frequently decry the first option as "hack and slash" - when as D&D was set up you'd messed up if you were in a fight.

I think this resulted from the reasoning of "If you take away the plot, then senseless fighting is all you have left". This happens when you already have the plotted adventure internalized as the only possible way to run a campaign. This kept me away from dungeon cawling for years.
I think the 3rd Edition DMG is also to blame for presenting this as the alternative to plotted adventures. Don't know if later editions did any better in that regard.

[draken50]

Responding late in the game, but personally I don't think there is a problem with GM's being selfish... maybe bad communicators about what to expect by playing in the game they are running/hosting, but I don't see selfishness as the problem.

I am the kind of GM with a this is the game I'm going to run, if you don't like that kind of game go somewhere else. I don't show up to a show by an AC\DC cover band, demand they play Iron Maiden and call them selfish if they don't. That just doesn't make any sense.

That being said, if I show up to see a show billed as an AC\DC cover band and they play journey covers the whole time, there's a problem with communication or a least a joke I wasn't in on.

Every GM is free to run whatever game they want, and every player is free to not play in that game at any time. By the same token, the GM is always free to not involve whatever players they want even if for some smattering of social blah blah blah they don't think that's the case.

In ideal circumstances the GM will explain the game they want to run clearly and have buy in from the players in that game. If the GM isn't happy with what the players want them to run, or the players aren't happy with what the GM wants to run, then you have a mismatch, and its a bad idea to play that game.

Additionally, one GM's ability to adapt to player preferences, or adjustment of rules, or lack thereof has absolutely no bearing on any other GM's ability to do the same thing. I don't care if you're previous GM was happy having his campaign turn into a giant power rangers reference or that some guy on you tube lets his players play as Elminster or what not... He's not GMing the game. What I do at my table is what I do at my table, there may be overlap with others, and some GMs may have differing ideas on how to run a good game. That's nice... but my table is my table and my game is my game, and I expect that to be true of any GM who understands that no one is "entitled" to play the game any specific way.

[FreddyNoNose]

1974?

I think that makes you "King Grognard".

I bow to you sir.

Thanks but not really. Just a gamer. Lived south of Lake Geneva and had access.

[Solaris]

You seem to be talking mostly about public games, and especially online games. In public games, the DM wants to strongly define *exactly* what rules will be used before hand, along with what options will and won't be available. Before they even begin to solicit players. Doing otherwise is a recipe for a generic game that will fall apart, instead of being compelling and unique. Or at least unique enough to draw players.

I once tried the "have the players participate more in game world creation" mistake.
One did.
The rest whined about how little there was to the world because I was left having to fill in the gaps when they got lazy and didn't even get so far as describing their home towns.
Never again.

After having been burned by that experience and a couple of others, I'm nowhere near as lenient as I used to be. If something doesn't fit in my setting, thematically or otherwise, then it doesn't fit. Period. My protesting your shoehorning your special snowflake race into my carefully crafted setting isn't being selfish, it's refusing to let someone vandalize my art. When a player puts as much effort into the world as I do, or even just puts effort into integrating their idea, then we can start talking. Even then, my answer is probably still going to be 'no' - but at least I'm going to be nicer about it and appreciate your efforts rather than react like someone taking a baseball bat to my Warhammer armies. I'm afraid there's simply no way that half-fiendish druid is going to fit in with Star Wars, nor will that evil centaur assassin work in a Knights of the Round Table setting. Player autonomy is a beautiful thing, but letting someone bring in something that doesn't work in the game is going to damage it for everyone who isn't them.

After all, by the "GM shouldn't be selfish" logic, it's perfectly acceptable for a player to be a murderhobo whenever they feel like it. GM's got a story going? Everyone else is having fun? Too bad! This guy wants to run around killing things, and it's selfish to stop him!

I met Greg Stafford, and I think someone at this Forum met Steve Perrin, but you met freakin' Dave Arneson???!!!!

My dad has a character sheet signed by Dave Arneson.
He's rather proud of it.

Re: "Those who can't do, teach."
My English professor thinks the Brothers Grimm were English (and we're not gonna go into her hilariously bad comprehension of medieval law) and that the most important parts of characterization are the character's name, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other external identifying factors as opposed to how they interact with their setting. The adage is not without a basis in reality.

[Mutazoia]

Re: "Those who can't do, teach."
My English professor thinks the Brothers Grimm were English (and we're not gonna go into her hilariously bad comprehension of medieval law) and that the most important parts of characterization are the character's name, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other external identifying factors as opposed to how they interact with their setting. The adage is not without a basis in reality.

The quote is not always deragatory. Many great, professional ball players have reached an age where they cannot keep up with the newer, younger players. They retire from playing, and instead become a coach. They can't play, but they can teach.

However, we often get the other end of the spectrum. The end implied above, and probably better summed up by my favorite quote (applied to corporate gibbons who run businesses they've never actually worked in). To wit: "I don't know what it is you do there, but I know how you can do it better."

[Lorsa]

Eh, I think there's room for a non-railroad plot without delving into the shared authority space. It's certainly how I try to run a lot of games.

+

Or "set up a situation, and respond to it". That doesn't require authority, and doesn't need to be hack and slash.

It's how I try to run my games too. So I agree there is definitely place for non-railroaded plots without shared authority.

[sktarq]

On the trying to be non-railroady but in charge. It is the ideal of many but issue is often how.

I know for me session zero was how I solved much of it. It allows for the communication that get both sides what they need.

Basic idea of what the group would be like.
What kind of feel and adventures the players wanted (for these I'll usually list options I like running and the group discusses what options they like and I'm willing to listen to new stuff at that point)
I mentioned what books are fair game-by saying so before anyone has created a character people seemed pretty relaxed about it. Nobody is attached to an idea yet.
Either create the character with the person in a one-on-one session or have them create a quick concept sketch (a paragraph or so) for a few options emailed to me and I'll say what works or doesn't about each (usually related to how each would fit in the party and world) before they work up a final character
While the builds are going on is when I build out the world/plot/etc.

So yeah. It's more work for me this way but I can't say I've had players not feel as though they are being railroaded. Yeah it's my world and I do have final say of what goes in (no I don't want to deal with Psionics or beastmen thankyou) and players get a good idea of what is expected of them too. But they also know they shaped the game world and an idea of a functional group dynamic which gives them emotional buy-in that is often key.

How do you guys splits the control but not railroad issue? Or at least what do you do that you thinks works?

[Asha Leu]

Quite a few different things being discussed in this thread, so I'll try my best to address each of them. Warning: very long post ahead.

First of all, I think it's important to bear in mind that with something like D&D (and other tabletop games), everyone has their own rather unique preconceptions of what a "good" or "bad" game is, and are pretty heavily biased by their own experiences.

This is particularly the case if you usually play with a semi-consistent group of real-life friends. Generally everyone in the group has either been introduced to and taught the game by other members of the group or were the ones doing the teaching, perhaps with one or two who learnt about it from an older relative or a different friend. This was definitely my experience growing up - most of us were introduced to D&D by one friend of ours, whose older brother had introduced him to the game. Newer players were then brought in and taught the game by us.

Environments like that become a bit of an echo chamber, with the group gravitating to certain play-styles and house-rules which, to them, are just "how D&D is played." I remember being shocked when I first started visiting D&D forums back in high school and learned that, in most games, the player comes up with their character's backstory, not the DM. The way we would handle backstories was: in the first session, the DM would quickly come up with a brief backstory (generally on the spot, but sometimes it would be written out ahead of time, depending on how prepared the DM in question was) for each player based on their race, class and the campaign itself. We never knew there was any other way of doing it.

Likewise, people's opinions will be significantly biased by their own play experiences.

If they mostly DM, their gripes will generally be with players. If they mostly play, they will have a lot more gripes about DMs. If they're used to DMs who railroad players into their intricate, unchangeable plots, they may be desperate for more free-form, sandboxy games, or they may just think that's what D&D is and have no desire for anything different (in which case, if they DM their own games, they will do the same thing). If they're used to DMs who are never prepared, just make it all up as they go, and run chaotic, anything-goes games, they may be desperate for some actual structure and story, and not give a damn about being railroaded, or they may just think that's what D&D is and have no desire for anything different (in which case, if they DM their own games, they will do the same thing).

If they DM for players who are obsessive rules-lawyers, optimize their characters to the hilt, and use twenty different sourcebooks for a single character, they may be desperate for some easy-going players who just want to have fun and roleplay, or they may just think that's what D&D is and have no desire for anything different. If they DM for players who are hopeless with remembering the rules, don't own their own books, and continually forget which dice to roll after years of playing, they may be desperate for some rules-lawyers and optimizers, because, hey, at least they are guaranteed to own and have read the rulebooks. Or they may just think that's what D&D is and have no desire for anything different. And if they DM for players who intensely roleplay through every encounter, spend ages on in-character conversations between party members without an NPC in sight, and deliberately make un-optimized characters for roleplay purposes, they may be desperate for some people who just want to kill **** and get gold. Or they may just think that's what D&D is and have no desire for anything different.

My point being that much of the things that cause conflict between players and/or DMs playing together for the first time come from their own unique experiences and preconceptions about what D&D is.

As far as my own biases go, for example, I've had little experience with optimizers, and a lot of experience with players who are fuzzy on the rules and don't own their own books. The one serious optimizer in my group is also the one most into role-playing. My group played 3.5 for 4-5 years without using anything besides the core rulebooks and one or two extra Monster Manuals. It wasn't until I visited online forums that I learnt that martial characters were apparently underpowered compared to spellcasters - we had no idea! I was the only one who ever bought Dragon magazine and splatbooks (well, one: the Expanded Psionics Handbook), and would make futile efforts to encourage players in my game to use them. This would be a regular conversation during character creation:

Me: "Okay, guys, just remember, you can feel free to use anything in this pile of Dragon magazines, and I have the Psionics Handbook too. No class or race restrictions."
Player: "Nah, I think I'll just be a human fighter again."

So, I personally don't have any issue with "min-maxing" or the sheer amount of source-books certain D&D editions have. Someone engaged enough in the game to spend time properly optimizing a character with lots of different splatbooks is probably someone who owns their own books, knows the rules, and will be paying attention during combat. Sounds like the ideal player to me!

Additionally, as I mostly DM these days, my own frustrations are almost always with players. But when I do have issues with DMs, said issues are based on my own experiences with less-than-stellar DMs - and these gripes are very different from the OP's. I couldn't give a damn about being restricted from certain material or character concepts, or DMs who don't let players co-design the setting, or even a bit of railroading. What drives me up the wall, however, is DMs who are lazy and unprepared (unless the DM is really good at winging it), who don't allow player agency, who fail to run combat smoothly, and generally don't bother keeping the game moving.

On DM's not allowing stuff:

Yeah. Got to be honest here, I reckon you should just deal with it. It's their game and their setting - if they don't want a particular race or class or whatever, that's up to them. Which isn't to say that the DM in question is correct to restrict whatever they are restricting - it can definitely be taken too far - but if you don't like it, don't play in their game.

I take a pretty dim view of special-snowflake players who just have to be a certain character. As I said in another thread: if you play so much D&D that you're already bored of all the options that are available, then you will almost certainly get a chance to play your desired character in another game very soon. And I definitely have zero sympathy for anyone who complains about not being allowed to use homebrew material, particularly homebrew stuff they designed themselves, especially if I've specifically said "no homebrew" in the game listing. Or people set on being something that there's just no balanced option for in that particular game, like a lycanthrope that can control their transformation in 5E (seriously, what is it with everyone wanting to be a lycanthrope?)

DM's don't exist solely to serve players. They've got to have fun too, and part of the fun of being a DM is creating a world and telling a story, and elements that break the verisimilitude of the setting interfere with that (not to mention affect the enjoyment of players who dig that sort of stuff). DMing is a lot of work for no real reward beyond the actual enjoyment of running the game. There's no doubt that many DMs are ********s, or control freaks, or just idiots - every demographic unfortunately has their fair share - but when I hear people complaining how there's a "selfish DM" problem, I wonder if they've ever actually DMed before.

On sandbox games, player agency, and co-operative worlds:

I think that it's definitely possible to create a heavily player-driven, sandbox game without any player input on the setting itself.

My own games wouldn't really be considered "sandboxes", but I do try to make them pretty player-driven: generally, I do detailed prep for the upcoming session but rarely write out much beyond that (though the broad strokes are planned out in my head). That way, I can plan the next session based on what the players did in the previous session, and account for lots of potential routes the players may take in my campaign notes without being overwhelmed with work. It results in individual sessions that are heavily structured but an overall campaign that has a more sandbox feel, without being caught in too many situations where the players just do something insane and I have to wing it for a while (though, of course, in inevitably will happen).

The whole "DM and players design the setting together" thing is very new to me, and something I've rarely incorporated in my own games. Players will write their own backstories, and if they're from some tiny village or tribe or some far away land, they can come up with the names and details, but otherwise I give them a list of towns/areas/whatnot their character is likely to be from and they can take it from there. I'm not opposed to the idea of a co-operative setting - though it did surprise me the first time I played in a game that used this - but it's not something I feel is especially needed either, and it's certainly not something a DM is obliged to provide. And it definitely isn't a necessary component for a good sandbox or player-driven game... though it would probably mean less work on the DM's part.

Certainly, I can only think of one player in my RL group who'd have much interest in playing a game like that, nor do I particularly have much of a desire for it when I'm playing in someone else's game. I spend enough time coming up with that sort of stuff when I'm DMing - when I play, I just want to play. But I'm probably pretty old-school in that regard. I was brought up with the idea that the DM designs the world and the players interact with it, and it is a mindset that has stuck with me.

On Roll20 and other online games:

This is an issue of supply and demand. There are much, much more players than DMs on platforms like Roll20 (and in the tabletop gaming community at large). It is very difficult to get accepted into games as a player, and very easy for a DM to find players. So, yeah, if you're going to DM a game, you might as well design the game on your own terms.

Personally, when I DM a game for strangers on Roll20, I will pick a (mostly) non-negotiable play time, detail the premise/setting and any race/class/book restrictions upfront, and tell people to only apply if they are okay with all of this. I have enough headaches trying to organise compatible game times and the like with my RL friends - Roll20 is a chance for me to DM on my terms.

I'm going to be flooded with people wanting to play regardless of what's in the listing, so I may as well tailor it towards my own preferences. Anyone can find players on Roll20. I could put up a listing for a game where players are only allowed to use the Commoner statblock from the Manual Manual, never level up or get new equipment, and every so often find their characters under the DM's control, and I'd have at least twenty applications within hours.

Now, I'm actually pretty easy-going in what I'll allow - I'm generally cool with nearly anything from official 5E sourcebooks, along with most Unearthed Arcana content - but I don't bemoan DMs with more strict restrictions at all. Their game, their choice. If you don't like it, don't play in their campaign.

[CaptainSarathai]

Yeah, gotta say - I ban stuff out of hand because I don't want it. I'll shut characters and whole players down, if I don't want them.
Straight up? I don't care.
I put minimum age limits on my group and they're high, like "out of college" high. I want new players vetted, no stranger just jumps in mid-campaign.
I cannot abide edgelord characters. That is my A-number-1 pet peeve. That, and Mary Sues.

I play at an FLG and started up an Arthurian campaign using 5e rules. Right off I banned any race outside the PHB except Goliath, and also banned Drow, Tieflings, and Dragonborn. I banned Druids, Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks. I also banned some backgrounds.
I did it because I want to run a certain kind of campaign. Don't want to be part of it, find another table.

I have DMed for a decade now, straight through. I have seen horrible players. I've only met a few other DMs and I didn't like half of them either, but I have seen far more bad PCs.

I want people to have fun and enjoy my games. I put time and effort and money into running my games. But I'm also spending time with real people, and I need to enjoy their company more than I enjoy staying at home drinking wine and playing Skyrim in my underpants. So if someone is immature, whiney, or I just can't stand that they named their character 'Kotaru' and only communicate in obscure anime references... Yeah, they're out.

Truly, honestly, it's my goal to sit down and collaboratively build a world with my friends and really explore it together, players and DM. Problem is, everyone is a selfish DM, given the chance. If I say we're collaborating, people won't compromise and then they'll be mad. Sometimes, our friends are idiots. Sometimes the people we like best, aren't equipped to help invent a cool new world - all their ideas just suck and the group only agrees 'anything but that.' That's why the DAM exists - to cut through all the noise and chatter and come up with something that pleases mostly everyone.

[2D8HP]

....That's why the DAM exists - to cut through all the noise and chatter and come up with something that pleases mostly everyone.

What is DAM?

[Fable Wright]

Are there any DM's out there who actually work with their players and build the world together instead of making all of the decisions themselves? Any DMs who enjoy the game vicariously through their players and focus on their players having a good time instead of changing all the rules so that YOU as the DM have all the "fun" at the player's expense?

Yep. I'm lazy, creativity is hard, and I have no idea what players really want out of my games.

So they each get one little bit of the setting to tell me about, and I string it together and fill in the blanks. They each tell me what their character goals are, and I tell them just how many mountains are between them and their goals. When the players fight, I assume that they're going to steamroll the encounters given the fact that they're both creative and absurdly powerful; I instead put all the difficulty in getting the players to arrange their battles in such a way that they actually advance their goals. If I have big, overarching goals, I want to be on the player side of the screen so I can feel vindication when I make them happen.

Then again, my entire group is basically made of people who are GMing other games, and we met on forums for discussing a really niche game that relatively few casual players know about. We've got investment, trust, and buy-in, while games with a lot of first-time players would disintegrate with this style of direction.

So, to answer your question: Based off personal experience, I'd say that 'good' GMs definitely exist, but it would be terrible if only they existed. Also, that they're a lot more likely to build a group based off the people they know, rather than doing online recruitment of randos.

[LibraryOgre]

I'll also add... collaborative worlds are, in many ways, harder. They require more buy-in from the players. A DM-led world requires relatively little effort from the players... they need to understand their character's part in it, and not much else. This is fantastic when you've got a bunch of people with plenty of lives and responsibilities, using some of their free time to play a game.

[ImNotTrevor]

I'll also add... collaborative worlds are, in many ways, harder. They require more buy-in from the players. A DM-led world requires relatively little effort from the players... they need to understand their character's part in it, and not much else. This is fantastic when you've got a bunch of people with plenty of lives and responsibilities, using some of their free time to play a game.

It's strange. I've had no problem with collaborative worlds even with absolute novice players who only have one day per week to play, inconsistently.

It's as simple as occassionally making it a matter of asking players questions within the starting context.

"What is a rumor going around that you hope is not true?"

"There's a festival on today. What's it for?"

"You see someone who you recognize, and you immediately know things are about to get worse. Who is it and why do you think that?"

Questions like that give threads for players to pull on and elaborate their own world. In systems that support such play, these types of questions are great! And in my experience they enhance player buy-in, rather than requiring it up-front. (Any more than any other method requires buy-in, anyways.)

[Solaris]

Y'know the most annoying part of the surplus of players? Half of them are still gonna disappear, despite the fact that they beat out a bunch of other players for the slot. It rather galls me that they snatch up a spot they don't seem to actually want simply for the sake of, apparently, making a character and keeping someone else from getting the slot. It seems rather... unethical.

I'll also add... collaborative worlds are, in many ways, harder. They require more buy-in from the players. A DM-led world requires relatively little effort from the players... they need to understand their character's part in it, and not much else. This is fantastic when you've got a bunch of people with plenty of lives and responsibilities, using some of their free time to play a game.

They also have the problem of utterly eradicating the lead-time I usually like to use to develop the world. It's been my experience that players want to start now, and if they don't then they're going to lose interest fast. I haven't come across too many groups that were very interested in spending a couple of weeks developing a setting before they got to play in it. I can see why collaborative world-building wouldn't appeal to a lot of players, actually; helping to make a world robs the player of some of the mystery and wonder of looting exploring it.

I think collaborative world-building could work for a New World/colonization type campaign, though. It provides the broad strokes of a setting, and it's not like the PCs would actually know anything about the new and unexplored territory.

[2D8HP]

Honestly, the current "typical model" is, I think, busted.

By the "typical model" I mean the idea that the GM will prepare a campaign in his world, with all of hte story points planned out. Into this you drop six PCs, who are all generated independently and without knowledge of what the campaign is about. And somehow they have to work together and be compatible even though nobody has any idea of what anybody else (including the GM) is doing. And then the game falls apart if some of them drop out because you have needed roles and the game fails without them.

I mean, it's just a recipe for disaster.

Y'know the most annoying part of the surplus of players? Half of them are still gonna disappear...

One thing that I've noticed with PbP games at this Forum is typically the DM selects players based on the back-stories submitted by the players. Often there's little in the way of hints as to what sorts of PC's will fit the "campaign", and presumably the DM selects players whose PC's fit, but more often they just seem to pick the one's with the highest word count, or snazzy illustrations.

At the start of the "game", the players lovingly narrate their PC's introducing themselves, and that's it, the players drop out.

The current model of selecting players encourages those who's chief interest is making and sharing PC's and their back-stories, but not actually playing a game much beyond that.

A bit of competitive soliloquies and nothing else.

Maybe a different model?

How about DM's ask for volunteers to play pre-gens that fit the world already?

...I think collaborative world-building could work for a New World/colonization type campaign, though. It provides the broad strokes of a setting, and it's not like the PCs would actually know anything' about the new and unexplored territory.

Um, that seems completely opposite.

It's strange. I've had no problem with collaborative worlds even with absolute novice players who only have one day per week to play, inconsistently.

It's as simple as occassionally making it a matter of asking players questions within the starting context.

"What is a rumor going around that you hope is not true?"

"There's a festival on today. What's it for?"

"You see someone who you recognize, and you immediately know things are about to get worse. Who is it and why do you think that?"

Questions like that give threads for players to pull on and elaborate their own world. In systems that support such play, these types of questions are great! And in my experience they enhance player buy-in, rather than requiring it up-front. (Any more than any other method requires buy-in, anyways.)

I don't like that because it diminishes my sense of exploring a world. When a DM says, "What do you want to find there?", my response is, "A setting, not an Empty Room!".

The only time I've thought that "Collaborative Worldbuilding" works well is when a player has their PC give a tour of their old-neighborhood/village to the other PC's. One amusing (to me) example was a player who made up a striving working-class mixed human and orc community for his half-orc to come from, that had a meek baker surnamed "Dwarfsplitter", and the sweet old lady school teacher "Bloodshedder".

[Theoboldi]

The current model of selecting players encourages those who's chief interest is making and sharing PC's and their back-stories, but not actually playing a game much beyond that.

Maybe a different model?

How about DM's ask for volunteers to play pre-gens that fit the world already?

This is actually quite an interesting idea, because I absolutely see where you're coming from with this idea. The current set-up does pose the problem of attracting players who are interested in creating a character, but then swiftly lose interest in the game once that character loses its novelty or the game doesn't move at the pace they hoped for.

While these are not the only players who enter games only to leave them (sometimes it comes down to real life suddenly interfering, or the campaign's style being completely different from what they've envisioned, etc.), they certainly are a big problem.

I'm actually interested to see if your proposed model would work. The big issue I see with it as is, however, is that I usually ask for a backstory to see which players are actually interested in the same kind of tone you want, what kind of character the players imagine for themselves, and if they are ready to work to fit their character into the setting I propose.

By what criteria would you suggest the GM chose the players for that game? How should he decide who gets to play those pre-gens? I'd consider asking for references and prior games, but that would just end up discriminating against newer players who can't have them, and I find references to be of little use to actually find people that will enjoy your campaign while causing me additional workload having to read up on them.

Perhaps the GM could present several short situations, and ask the applicants to provide a short writing sample the length of a usual post to see how they'd approach each of them with the pre-gen they want to play?

[Max_Killjoy]

The DM runs the world, players run their characters. The DM has access to all the secret info that your characters may or may not discover.

On the other hand, more modern games, such as the Apocalypse Engine games and Fate Core, demand collaboration from the players.

Someone has to manage all the things that the PCs, and thus the players, don't know or don't have control over.

[2D8HP]

....Perhaps the GM could present several short situations, and ask the applicants to provide a short writing sample the length of a usual post to see how they'd approach each of them with the pre-gen they want to play?

Oh, that's good!

Unfortunately it does sound like more work for both the potential players and the DM (a player can't just re-use an old backstory, a DM has to write a preview), but that proposal does seem to model an actual game better.

Except that it would probably make it less likely for me to be picked, but if I was I think the games would last longer.

I like it!

[Koo Rehtorb]

I don't think you're going to avoid the problem that PbP is inherently a bad format to have a game in.

[Max_Killjoy]

Honestly, the current "typical model" is, I think, busted.

By the "typical model" I mean the idea that the GM will prepare a campaign in his world, with all of hte story points planned out. Into this you drop six PCs, who are all generated independently and without knowledge of what the campaign is about. And somehow they have to work together and be compatible even though nobody has any idea of what anybody else (including the GM) is doing. And then the game falls apart if some of them drop out because you have needed roles and the game fails without them.

I mean, it's just a recipe for disaster.

The other extreme I've seen suggested is that character creation and campaign creation should all be collectivized to the extent that the world has no secrets, the plot has no secrets, and the PCs have no secrets, at least not at campaign start. Players get to meddle -- not suggest or exchange ideas, but outright meddle -- in each other's characters, and nothing about the world or ongoing events can be established unless it's openly shared.

IMO, this is an overreaction to the sort of problem you're pointing out, and is a cure that's at least as bad as a malady.

I think there's a middle ground, a healthy medium in which the players know enough about each others' characters and collaborate enough to not clash, and the GM takes player preferences and PC builds into account, and players know enough about what sort of campaign they're in to integrate their characters into it.


E: Looks like you and Yora both beat me to to it, anyway.

Eh, I think there's room for a non-railroad plot without delving into the shared authority space. It's certainly how I try to run a lot of games.


Or "set up a situation, and respond to it". That doesn't require authority, and doesn't need to be hack and slash.


Not all of these are required (you don't need scene handling mechanics, or character arcs highlighted by the rules). You do need fast improv - but that predates the current "narrative" games and really goes back to old school games. Heck, even Apocalypse World, which is in many ways the poster child for narrative games, doesn't have a lot of these.


Adventure Paths rely on the "GM (or the publisher) writes the story" model because that's the only way their business model works. If you don't know (within a fairly reasonable degree) the state of the important bits of the world after the first module, how can you write the second?

I think this resulted from the reasoning of "If you take away the plot, then senseless fighting is all you have left". This happens when you already have the plotted adventure internalized as the only possible way to run a campaign. This kept me away from dungeon cawling for years.
I think the 3rd Edition DMG is also to blame for presenting this as the alternative to plotted adventures. Don't know if later editions did any better in that regard.

There does seem to be that idea floating around that we have only the choices between firm DM preplotting, or no plot/story at all... between authoritarian DMs, or absolute chaos.

[Solaris]

One thing that I've noticed with PbP games at this Forum is typically the DM selects players based on the back-stories submitted by the players. Often there's little in the way of hints as to what sorts of PC's will fit the "campaign", and presumably the DM selects players whose PC's fit, but more often they just seem to pick the one's with the highest word count, or snazzy illustrations.

At the start of the "game", the players lovingly narrate their PC's introducing themselves, and that's it, the players drop out.

The current model of selecting players encourages those who's chief interest is making and sharing PC's and their back-stories, but not actually playing a game much beyond that.

A bit of competitive soliloquies and nothing else.

Maybe a different model?

How about DM's ask for volunteers to play pre-gens that fit the world already?

I go with Skype, either for at least part of the gaming or for the OOC conversation. That seems fairly unpopular, but the players who do go for it tend to stick around longer. Most importantly, I now look for the players who are most active and engaged.
The last time I ran a game where I picked out the players that way (one guy dropping because I kicked his friend out for being an ******* rules lawyer who interrupted a combat for a fifteen-minute argument over an utterly pointless point aside) the game lasted until I wasn't able to get interwebs anymore on account of not having a place to live. That wasn't even a very good game, either; it was the one where I learned players tend to have a vastly different definition of collaborative world-building and sandbox-style play than I do. I was able to rescue the 'miscommunication' on sandbox by throwing in rails and a plot, but because of the slapdash nature of everything it was a far from satisfying experience for anyone involved and they still stuck around. Heck, they're the first group of online players I've had where I could honestly say that if they were to apply for another one of my games, I'd take them instead of making a pointed reminder about how they vanished from my last game.

Um, that seems completely opposite.

Then think about it differently, because you're looking at it the wrong way. Players tend to contribute broad, little-defined components - in this case, it doesn't much matter whether they be for the new world or the old. The exploratory nature of such a campaign gives the GM time to integrate said components from the new world, and they'll likely never return to the old world so those components can remain vague.

Contrast that with Eberron, Krynn, and the Forgotten Realms, which are all entirely filled in and have hundreds of pages describing them. Players used to that expect to know the map and everything on it, have hundreds of pages of material available (that they'll never read, of course), and if you have anything less than that your world is crap. More to the point, given the typical D&D player's apparent allergy towards creativity, you're going to need to define everything around them for their special little snowflakes to set their tragic pasts in. If you're very, very lucky, they'll even give you some idea of what they're looking for instead of complaining or pouncing on you for having made the mistake of being a human rather than a machine perfectly designed to provide them entertainment.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Oh, that's good!

Unfortunately it does sound like more work for both the potential players and the DM (a player can't just re-use an old backstory, a DM has to write a preview), but that proposal does seem to model an actual game better.

Except that it would probably make it less likely for me to be picked, but if I was I think the games would last longer.

I like it!

It doesn't do anything for the real problem, though, which is unreliability.
Being a good - or even great - writer does not make a player reliable. It doesn't matter if you have George RR Martin and JRR Tolkien in your PbP if only one of them is actually going to bother posting anything.

I don't think you're going to avoid the problem that PbP is inherently a bad format to have a game in.

I agree. The farther I get from the standard PbP model, the more success I've had with games.

[Lord Raziere]

I agree. The farther I get from the standard PbP model, the more success I've had with games.

Yeah, freeform PbP is better, because there is no system to hold you back and the medium makes you think through your actions and responses so that they make sense. Just make a world, let whoever come in and post and it generally works better than trying to systematize it, because a normal PbP will cut out most of the players who'd want to play just arbitrarily, as well as make you have to go through pdfs and books to look things up, make you remember how to roll stuff, just a lot of stuff that isn't needed in a PbP medium that'll bog things down and make you unable to post anything more because your so tired from just making the character according to the rules, since most resolution systems do not work well over the internet, because they are all meant to be played in real time, and PbP is anything but.

[DataNinja]

I go with Skype, either for at least part of the gaming or for the OOC conversation. That seems fairly unpopular, but the players who do go for it tend to stick around longer.

I definitely agree with this. I admin on a strictly PbP site, and had some PbP experience prior to that, and I've found that the average lifespan of our games has gone up drastically since we began encouraging some form of RT conversations. Any game that is just PbP, with only an OOC thread for communication, if that, tends not to last long. There are exceptions, of course, but as a general rule, more immediate communication equals a better experience.

So, yeah, that feeds into another point made, which is that the games aren't designed for PbP. And, this is true. You can make the most out of the situation given, though, by having some way to easily socialize with your GM and fellow players outside of the game. I've made several friendships that way, that have long outlasted the original games that we were in together.

[2D8HP]

I go with Skype, .

Yeah, I'm never going to "Skype".

I go with Skype, More to the point, given the typical D&D player's apparent allergy towards creativity, you're going to need to define everything around them for their special little snowflakes to set their tragic pasts in.

You don't need to a "World" at all!

Once I sussed that DM's tend to go by word count, and how many dead relatives you pile into the back-story, and since others have noticed the same thing it's become easy to systemize PC back-story production:

Names:

Edgy name generator! Roll 3d20!

d20	First name	Last name (1st half)	Last name (2nd half)
1	Agony	Beast	Arrow
2	Dagger	Black	Blade
3	Ghost	Blood	Blood
4	Ghoul	Cold	Bone
5	Gloom	Dark	Crow
6	Misery	Despair	Dark
7	Mist	Doom	Demon
8	Moon	Ever	Death
9	Pain	Fright	Eye
10	Raven	Fury	Flame
11	[Refuses to state first name]	Grim	Heart
12	Shadow	Hate	Ice
13	Shudder	Never	Mark
14	Spider	Pain	Martyr
15	Talon	Poison	Scar
16	Twilight	Razor	Shackle
17	Venom	Steel	Skin
18	Wander	Storm	Skull
19	Whisper	True	Snow
20	Wolf	Vengeance	Sword

A few try-outs:

Talon Despairmartyr
Dagger Razorflame
Twilight Poisonice
Venom Darkcrow
Misery Whisperdeath

Working as intended, it seems.

Class, Race, and Tragic Events:

Well, here is an edgy character generator I made for 5th edition D&D. Use with the name generator. Enjoy!

1d6	Race
1	Human
2	Half-orc
3	Drow
4	Half-drow
5	Tiefling
6	Ghostwise Halfling

1d10	Class
1	Fiend Warlock
2	Shadow Sorcerer
3	Assassin Rogue
4	Undying Warlock
5	Death Cleric
6	War Cleric
7	Berserker Barbarian
8	Hunter Ranger
9	Vengance Paladin
10	Shadow Monk

1d8	Backstory p1	1d8	Backstory p2
1	I was abused by	1	Family member(s).
2	I hate	2	Dragon(s).
3	My family was killed by	3	Orc(s).
4	I am a transformed	4	Demon(s).
5	I am in love with a	5	Devil(s).
6	I killed a	6	Drow
7	I have the soul of a	7	Ghost(s).
8	I work for	8	Assassin(s).

Alignment:

I'll add some stuff to the class table.

Alignments that are edgy? I would say CG, CN, TN, LN, LE, NE. Gives us a nice 6 alignments.

1d6	Alignment
1	Chaotic good, Probably racist.
2	Chaotic neutral, 'classic' edgy character.
3	True neutral. Pragmatic to the core.
4	Lawful neutral. Probably serves an evil higher power.
5	Lawful evil. Lives by her own code.
6	Neutral evil. Like chaotic good, but probably racist towards more people.

Edit: The characters that are being ended up with are awesome. My tables do have a lot of bugs (killing an orc isn't much), but with the working for your family, what if your family is evil?

Drop in a physical description:

Grimblade Mourncloud rued birth into this world of pain and especially wearing spiked bracelets and skull epaulets to the mall that matched those adorning Darkfire Stormwind who's tragic deal and awesomicity had no match. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
Verily if Darkfire Stormwind had any tears left to shed, surely they would turn to steam upon release due to the bitter fires that rage inside one such as Darkfire Stormwind! Just a gaze from Darkfire Stormwind steel colored eyes (which were set off well by the spiked bracelets, and skull epaulets) was enough to turn one such as Grimblade Mourncloud into a mere tepid stain at the mall!
Darkfire Stormwind tragic deal and awesomicity were such that Darkfire Stormwind only spoke of Darkfire Stormwind in the third person. Darkfire Stormwind just liked to say Darkfire Stormwind!

And a personality:

Well, hold on, I think we're missing one of the most important parts of the proper edgelord here.

He's got to be misunderstood! His misanthropic nature is simply the outward manifestation of a deep-seated insecurity, resulting from the internalization of the notion that he is apart from others and always will be, that he somehow stands alone, and that no one will ever truly understand the incredible, titanic struggle within himself, nor will he ever truly be able to relate this to another person, no matter how close they become.

Darkedge Shadowblade's behavior and affectations are, in large part, due to this deep-seated need for understanding and acceptance. And yet, as a half-tiefling, half-aasimar assassin, given incredible gifts in the art of death that, in truth, are more of a burden than a boon, who can truly claim to understand or know him? Of course, he does what he must do to survive, and so he will tell himself, as his black-edged knife cuts the throat of one more unsuspecting nobleman, fatted on the wealth of the nation that he's enslaved with his unjust regime; but there will always be that shadow of self-doubt. The kind that can usually only be expressed during brooding internal monologues while Darkedge Shadowblade crouches, hunched and ready to leap at a moment's notice, on the silent gargoyles of the largest church in the city -- itself an impossibly large symbol of greed and lust for power given form in unfeeling stone -- as the rain pours down his hooded and implacable face.

You gotta' have the rain. That makes the whole scene.

Voila!

A PC with a backstory product perfect for most games!



You're welcome.

[pwykersotz]

Huh...Apparently I'm Agony Blood Blood, Half-orc Shadow Sorcerer. I killed a Dragons. I'm Chaotic Good, probably racist.

Those tables are amazing, I'm going to mandate them for my next one-off campaign.

[Lord Raziere]

the fact people can make tables about the common backstories for PC makes me feel better about my own character concepts that I come up with. because I see the results and know that I can do better just by putting even a little thought and softness into their character and lives to balance them out and make them more than just edgy caricatures.

like just take a normal edgy character and instead of being grim and broody, just make them talk normally and make them try to find happiness, just actually make an effort to crack a joke, or play a song or something to make them being capable of being silly and soft if only for the moments when they are not being shell-shocked badasses, and boom instant humanization. because most people don't want to actually remind themselves of their past traumas by being bringing them up and being broody about them, they try to find ways to ignore it so that they can get a sense of normalcy.

or you can pull a false edgelord, where the person ACTS like a complete edgelord, but really is just from a sheltered background where everything that happened to them is comparatively light in relation to what everyone else has suffered, and so when they meet everyone else they start realizing "oh frack, I don't know ANYTHING, I actually have it pretty good, my life was awesome in comparison!" and thus their attitude changes to be more caring to everyone else.

or even, and this is a radical idea: a complete softlord. Their parents are not dead and are in fact their parents good aligned badasses on par with angels themselves. they were raised in the best possible conditions imaginable, and all the villains that tried to make their backstory tragic complete failed when their parents kicked their asses and made sure their town was safe. So they are inspired to be an adventurer by watching their parents do it and think it looks easy, but the entire point their parents do this is so that their child would live a better life than being an adventurer, so they are actually AGAINST him being an adventurer for their own protection, and they run away to prove that they can be a hero just fine on their own and save people just like mom and dad, not realizing how hard it really is.

[Honest Tiefling]

or you can pull a false edgelord, where the person ACTS like a complete edgelord, but really is just from a sheltered background where everything that happened to them is comparatively light in relation to what everyone else has suffered, and so when they meet everyone else they start realizing "oh frack, I don't know ANYTHING, I actually have it pretty good, my life was awesome in comparison!" and thus their attitude changes to be more caring to everyone else.

One day, I want to play a tiefling attempting to go full edgelord because they hate being compared to their much more reasonable and successful human siblings. And make up a completely cliche backstory when the character actually comes from a decent and loving middle class family of grocers who are mildly confused as to why the child they sent to wizard school turned out a bit weird.

[Theoboldi]

It doesn't do anything for the real problem, though, which is unreliability.
Being a good - or even great - writer does not make a player reliable. It doesn't matter if you have George RR Martin and JRR Tolkien in your PbP if only one of them is actually going to bother posting anything.

Well, duh. Players being unreliable is not something you can ever eliminate with internet gaming. The possibility to stay anonymous and just disappear one day is always there, making it trivial to just slip away if a game doesn't turn out to be to your liking. It's not even all that much better if you create chatrooms on skype or discord or whatever. From what I've seen, best case scenario is that people still disappear at random, and eventually just stop posting there or start missing sessions like they would with just an OOC thread, while in the worst case scenario they'll ignore the chat entirely, and just post on the OOC thread unless they have to.

The only way to really avoid that is a community effort to blacklist players who slip out without giving a word. Otherwise, there's no negative consequences for them doing that, other than that particular GM becoming unavailable to them. Which isn't exactly a big problem, given that they probably didn't like his campaign in the first place.

But yeah, my suggestion was just for that one particular problem 2D8HP mentioned, and just a small examination of a possible solution to it. And as I said, it's (mostly) not about the quality of the writing sample. It's about the tone and approach the player uses, about letting me see how they'd play their character. That's more important to me than anything else.

[ImNotTrevor]

Someone has to manage all the things that the PCs, and thus the players, don't know or don't have control over.

There are plenty of things my players don't know about even in Apocalypse World.

I don't like that because it diminishes my sense of exploring a world. When a DM says, "What do you want to find there?", my response is, "A setting, not an Empty Room!".

That's not what these questions ask about. You'll notice that these questions are about things that a character living in this world would already know.

Your character, to a certain degree, already knows much more about the world than you do as a player. When I ask "What is this festival about?" Your character would have no problem telling me. And I ask you for a variety of reasons. Some of them include:
1. Most people care more about a thing they had a hand in making. You tell me about your character'a hometown festival, and now you'll fee something when I threaten it.
2. Throwing more creative brains at a thing tends to improve it.

You'll also note that my questions establish a scene but request input about details. There is a festival happening, but you can tell me WHY it's happening.
I decided you were about to have an encounter with a rival, you just give me a name and a reason for the rivalry.

The only time I've thought that "Collaborative Worldbuilding" works well is when a player has their PC give a tour of their old-neighborhood/village to the other PC's. One amusing (to me) example was a player who made up a striving working-class mixed human and orc community for his half-orc to come from, that had a meek baker surnamed "Dwarfsplitter", and the sweet old lady school teacher "Bloodshedder".

In many ways, this is essentially what I strive for in a different form.

You don't decide the problems, not really. I do. I just let you have input on what those problems will look like or who will put a face to them.

And of course, I need a system that will help me in that regard.