Story styles (roleplaying)

[robinbloke]

When designing campaigns/storylines and adventures for players I very rarely pre-write solutions for what I expect to happen or where the story "should" go; as in my mind the players are the focus of any story and where it goes and what is read as the pages turn should be focused primarily (in most games at least) on what they are doing.
This usually results in me running games where I am about thirty seconds ahead of whatever players are doing and this is when I run games best, with a vague overview of what is going on and sponenatity filling in the cracks as the players choose their paths.
My current campaign (now running for about 14 years) has reached a point where I can see what and where it is going to go, that the players are unlikely to have that much input into it. This is contary to my usual way of writing games because, as I mentioned, I like the focus to be on the players.
My question is this; if a game is set to follow a path or story that is unlikely to involve players much, how can you get the players attention, keep it rolling and most importantly not just write off an epic campaign resolution in half an hour with "Npc X does this, Npc Y does that, all finished."

I'm thinking out loud here, but ideas and suggestions are very welcome.

Comments

[siranui.livejournal.com]

Hmm...railroading and 'look what my NPCs do' can really suck.

Try to find a part of the story that the PCs CAN do, and get them cracking on it. Then demonstate what that does to the entire plot.

eg: If Prince A needs to marry Princess B to heal the rift between kingdoms, then surely only a mighty gem will do as the engagement piece... send the party off to find such an item (or a specific item which was stolen generations ago, or whatever) and then when it gets handed over in a 'cut scene', the players can nod to each other and say 'we did that'.

What's the exact situation?

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Ye olde ancient evil rising up after being bound under the world for millenia and crushing life as we know it. Players are gathering info but need more for them to do while a npcs tries to convince some dragons to help them fight this thing.

[siranui.livejournal.com]

As posted elsewhere: certainly don't let the know that the outcome is set in stone.

Ideally make it part look like they actually *caused* the outcome somehow. I know it's cruel, but it's funny.

Of course, you can darken the camaign and slowly corrupt the party to 'the dark side' so that they HELP the ancient evil. Or you can darken the game to a very Cyberpunk feel...

If that's too dark, then moral decisions are good. Tempt the party in some manner and try to make them empathise with the ancient evil in some way. At least that way they'll question things and they'll be distracted from the inevitability of it all.

I suppose that you could seek a bit of inspiration from Star Wars, as the first 3 films are pretty much about this topic.

Also, as regards the Cyberpunk feel idea... you can take a bit of inspiration from WFRP here, as well... secret societies springing up and the rot not only appearing at the 'edges' of the world, but right at it's heart, too. Have a few old contacts 'fall' to the darkside and betray the party. Maybe if the party are 'a threat' they could be betrayed and declaired fugatives, forced to lead a war in the shadows against the onslaught of evil that the public have been kept blissfully unaware of.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Cheers :)

Evil in my campaign world is a highly relative thing.
There's the evil of demons and their mindless destruction. The evil of the rising ancient that will basically wipe out the world. The evil of the ice elves (aka dark elves) who are a slave based cast system, of which several of the players are from.
It keeps it interesting!

[siranui.livejournal.com]

would it work to have some people embrace even 'kill everything and end the world evil'... It would be an end to suffering, after all! Some followers may have nothing more to loose, while others perhaps see the world as a corrupted place that needs wiping out.

My Monday gang are quietly exploring 'We're the Imperium, die xenos scum' Evil with great gusto.

[emperor]

I think this was part of the problem that the RMSS was about run headlong into, actually.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

But there were zombies!

[simonsatori.livejournal.com]

Just because the ending is predestined doesn’t mean that the journey has to be.

From my experience of running RPGs (a long long time ago when I had free-time!) I think the trick is not to tell the players that they have no free will. If you’ve already told them then you have to make sure that they get a chance for their characters to be themselves in front of the big battle/apocalypse/resolution that is happening in the background.

It’s a bit like Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: just because the Hamlet story is the big important one it doesn’t mean that these ‘small parts’ can’t have fun trying to figure out where they stand in the big scheme of things.

OK, if evil is rising and the players can't stop it directly, nor take part in persuading the cavalry (dragons) to enter the battle, why not give them the job of trying to hold a specifically valuable city/castle until the cavalry arrives. They could even take place in some heroic 'final defence' scenes or try to infiltrate the evil group to gain valuable information.

Just an idea.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Thank you sir, incidentally been far too long since I bought you a drink last!

[ragnvaeig.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm such a control freak I have flow-charts organising all possible situations my characters might come up with, and what to do when they make certain decisions. Of course, it all goes to hell the second I let them loose in my world, but so it goes (sic semper tyrannis?).

I tend to be spiritualism-heavy in my games, but in a situation extraordinarily like the one you mentioned, I had my PCs attempt to interpret and follow prophecy, where they eventually had to follow one preordained path. They got it horribly, horribly wrong, but then they just had a "surprise ending." ;o)

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

I tried flow charts and lines of connections, but it's hard for me to generate more than a little at a time; I'm at my best when just ahead of the characters as I say.

Prophecies I should have thought to include... would have helped when you can control reality!

[siranui.livejournal.com]

Never really works with my lot. They pitch out of left field a lot. Still, I try to anticipate and plan 'obvious' solutions.