Chatty DM: I’m currently on blogging Hiatus until the Week of December 20th. In the meantime, I post old articles of mine or bring you guest posts from my readers. Today, prepare for a treat from my friend Eric Maziade.
Hi there! Don’t be fooled by the familiar decor: I’m not ChattyDM – most people aren’t. I’m Eric Maziade, subbing in for said ChattyDM. If you want to know more about me, you can visit my various Web sites, which are all linked from my “main” web site: eric.maziade.com.
Enough with the plugging…
I’ve been raking by brains for a topic to try and entertain you and I ended up choosing sharing narrative control.
According to some online dictionary, a narrative is the telling of some true or fictitious event or connected sequence of events, recounted by a narrator to a narratee (although there may be more than one of each).
In Dungeons and Dragons, the tradition (a.k.a. common assumption) is that the DM (or GM, or whatever you kids call’em these days) are the ones holding narrative control. They are the ones who tell the story in which the players participate.
And what is there to debate? As a DM, you create the story, you – with help from Dr. Polyhedral Randomzier – determine the outcome of the player’s action.
You are like a god onto your make-belief world – you have the absolute control.
Or do you? Even better – should you?
All the most memorable role playing sessions and memories I have and had the chance to read on the Internet seem to share one constant: something wonderful and exciting happened in which the player’s action had some unexpected effect (small or large) on the world.
My understanding is that sharing narrative control – allowing your players to decide what happens in the story – is the key to such memories.
(Or is it beer? Can’t remember)
To me, sharing narrative control goes beyond the choices that the players make as players – its not a direct cause-to-effect relationship. It truly is about allowing the players (as PCs) to willingly or not affect what happens in the story.
You’re not convinced? You don’t want to let go of your godly DM powers?
Fear not, for here’s a piece of good news: sharing narrative control is not the same as surrendering narrative control.
I’m no expert on that kind of sharing, but that won’t stop me from trying to start a good discussion on the topic 🙂
What we’re aiming for is not necessarily to have your players tell you exactly what is going to happen next. That’s quite an interesting concept on its own, but I’m thinking more about allowing your players’ thoughts and actions to alter the outcome of what you might have planned.
The way I see it is quite simple:
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Engage Players Into Open Speculations
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Stimulate Creativity By Creating Limits
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Be ready to let go of the ‘default outcome’ that is already planned. (This is so hard for me!!)
Open Speculations
Engaging players into open speculations usually happens by itself. All the players I ever had always discuss their next moves when something happens. I listen to their thoughts about what is happening and allow their ideas to affect what’s coming next – trying hard not to be formulaic.
If I want to provoke speculations, I might trigger an unexpected event. The cleric might have a cryptic, prophetic dream that the players will try to interpret. They might also discuss it with an NPC… or choose to ignore it.
Whatever they turn out expecting I won’t necessarily give them what they want. After all, chances are each player will expect something else.
One thing for sure is that I’ll allow myself to be inspired by their expectations. If you’re playing with youngsters, just giving them what they want seems to works best. Most adults I play with, however, like to be surprised.
Here are a few examples:
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The rogue tried to convince the others that the dagger (planned loot) was cursed and should be discarded – in the hopes of getting it for himself. He succeeds and palms it instead of disposing of it. After a few game sessions, it turns out that the dagger actually was cursed!
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After having ignored all the hints about tracking some creatures, the players decided that the only way they could have escaped the village was through the well. Why not! The original story had kobolds capture kids that were wondering outside of town. Now? A kobold team stealthily invaded the town through a tunnel under the well. This no longer was an opportunistic kidnapping – the kobolds had a plan… they needed something or someone specific… for some specific needs. Triggering more speculations, altering the story more and making it much more personal.
Creating Limits
People are often incredulous when I say that creativity is stimulated by adding limits.
Do you think MacGuyver would’ve been as fascinating if he had access to everything ever made by man?
No – his creativity was fueled by the limited resources at his disposal.
Think about it: it is the limits that force you to be creative.
One of my favorite creativity exercise when I’m stumped for an idea is to open a dictionary, picking up a word at random and figuring what is the word’s relation to the situation.
The word itself is irrelevant, but just trying to create links will most often than not create new, better ideas.
Same goes for players.
Give them things to explore through your descriptions and they’ll create the path between them and their goal for you.
In my previous example, the well in the village was part of the description and was originally a red herring. (Kids disappearing? A well? Pfah! Way too easy!)
If a player is suspicious about an item, explore the idea by giving him obscure reasons to believe the object is not what it seems…. and give other players reasons to believe otherwise. Watch them make sense of it all.
Sometimes, you can also be blessed with players with whom you can truly share narrative control. Maybe you can share a campaign with a fellow DM/player, or maybe one of the players can flat out say : “wouldn’t it be cool if the evil sorcerer we’re after turned out to be the baron’s sister, which became mad after having been polymorphed into a man?”. (Wouldn’t it?).
Let Go of the ‘Default Outcome’
Sharing narrative control just cannot happen if you can’t let go of your original ideas… Your player’s ideas can only help stimulate your own creativity.
Your campaigns’ original storyline might end up taking you to wonderful, unexpected places if you allow your players to have an impact on it.
After all, that’s what role playing really is, isn’t it? A bunch of friends sitting together and telling themselves wonderful stories?
Awesome post.
Sharing narrative control is the one set of DMIng skills I want to develop more in the coming year. I feel that if I become able to “let go” more easily, the games will be more enjoyable for all.
I’ll get there, I know!
Thanks for writing this Eric.
@ChattyDM : Glad you liked it!
I’m especially more glad that it looks like it makes sense to at least one person outside of my head.
What you’re doing with your children sounds like a pretty good “letting go of narrative control” exercise.
I think this kind of DMing is closer to improv than it is to storytelling.
Eric Maziades last blog post..Playing a zombie character
Well, by definition sharing narrative control will means you will depend more often on your capacity to improvise.
So in that sense they are intrinsically related.
@Yan: That’s one way to look at it… and you’re absolutely right 🙂
Eric Maziades last blog post..DM vs Player
First of all, nice article! I like it, and I think you’re right in the sense that sharing narrative control should involve players more and facilitate for better experiences.
To me, the question I really need to ask myself is not “whether or not I share narrative control” but “to what degree do I share it”. When you look at it theoretically, every time a GM (what the kids call ‘m today) allows a player to describe her actions, he shares control.
But where do you stop… I, and I’m guessing I’m not alone, have a lot of difficulties with letting go of the “scripted movie”-concept of the campaign. Nowadays, I try to make the first few sessions of every new campaign free-flow. I offer players some adventure hooks, they pick what they like and we go from there. It is difficult for control freaks. And I think control freaks (to a certain extent) are much more likely to pursue the GM-role in RPG’s.
But again, nice article, very discussion-stimulating!
@Flying Dutchman: Thanks!
It’s true there always is some sharing if you allow your players to play 🙂
Most GMs (maybe I’ll get used to that?) I’ve ever played with are either storytellers or rules freaks (me included). So its usually following a tight script, with very few options to branch the storyline. There are options and branching… but we always went from point “A” to point “B”.
The only time I played where this wasn’t true is when my other players were GMs as well and we were taking turns about every session as the GM. I could start a session at point “A” and aim the players to point “B”. GM #2 didn’t really know about point “B”, so when he took over, he brought us to point “C”.
I’d love to find a way to do this without necessarily swap GMs every session… and to preserve the surprise of “what’ll happen next” for the players.
I guess you need vocal and storytelling players to achieve that?
Eric Maziades last blog post..DM vs Player
Wow, switching GM’s is something new for us. I think switching GM’s would be quite the challenge. I really cherish the worlds I create to play in, and I can be a bit dominant. If I were player in my own world, I would have to constantly resist correcting the GM on everything, from making mistakes in history to proper prenunciation…
We did try the following experiment. I took one player aside, provided him with a plan to a rather large dungeon and a list of minions, and let him play the dungeon’s big bad villain. Really, the only thing I did as a DM was roll the dice for minions and direct their battles, as the other player kept handing me notes on how he positioned his troops, what traps he set, and other actions, like calling in reinforcements from his portal to some evil plane.
The great thing about this was that I shared narrative control to the extent that I almost fully let go of it, and players wrought their own story. The bad thing is that, by letting go of control, I lost the ability to improvise. I couldn’t alter anything during the game, unless I consulted the player playing the villain first. After all, it would be unfair to have his minions suddenly become less strong, simply because the players couldn’t handle them. Or have a secret door with something special behind it suddenly appeat, because one player suggested the possibility and I thought it would be cool. At the end, during the great battle between villain and PC’s, they nearly got into a real fight and there was way too much rules advocating going on, which is not unusual when you pit players against each other.
It was a fun experiment, but it didn’t work out as I had planned.
I made some suggestions on your website on how I try to get players involved. But the start would certainly be the having vocal and storytelling players. I think you really need to stimulate the players in motivating their decisions and discussing with each other, so you can pick up on their expectations and dynamics, as well as pick out the cool ideas and use them, if not today, then tomorrow.
The one thing I need to point out in all this sharing narrative discussion is that Improv is not a strong skill in many GMs.
When you let go of your defined scenes and resolutions and open up to the possibility of players having a deep impact on where the story can go the GM has to develop the necessary skills and the associated comfort level of pulling it off.
This is no easy task for many.
I must say though that having a core game with multiple GMs is one hell of a way of sharing!
@ Chatty: Yeah I read something like that on other sites before. People switching GM’s every session or every few sessions. I don’t think that’s a good formula for me, I kind of need that consistency of knowing that I’m in control. Even if I try to share the control and try to implement player suggestions.
As for the improv skills; I also agree, not everyone likes improvising or is as good at it as they’d want. To me, a GM must be able to improvise a little bit every once in a while, or else the campaign would be kind of static.
But that’s my view, everyone should play the game as they like it. That’s why its a game 😉
Nice article, Eric.
I believe I have an interesting experience to share with you about sharing the narrative. At a certain point in “my” campaign the players arrived at a city which had been experiencing some confrontations between treants and the people of the city. It started with some fights between the treants and some woodcuters, but an “evildoer” from the city captured a sort of “sacred shrubbery”, and the confrontations were rising in intensity. War was about to start…
When the group arrived at the city, there were only some rumours about this. I stopped the narrative and said that a gathering of the City Council was taking place. I assigend each one them the role of one councilor, and passed a note to each one saying who the councilor was, and what was its position towards the whole matter.
Some wanted to keep the peace at all costs, while others thought it more wise to attack the treants before they had time to make a full attack on the city walls, thus endangering the citizens.
We roleplayed the entire Council Meeting. It was a very interesting experience, and in the end “the Council” decided for a diplomatic approach.
So, not only did I allow the group to decide if there was going to be a war or not, but also the diplomatic solution they came up with allowed for a new plot hook later developed.
I’s advise you to give it a try. 😉
@Flying Dutchman:
Swapping GMs worked surprisingly well.
We had our own world which was a collective effort from the ground up. We were also very respectful of each other’s ideas – even when throwing curveballs at one another.
One unspoken rule we had is that a GM can use as many sessions as he wanted before relinquishing control to the next GM.
We also split the campaign in various GM-specific subplots.
I don’t think I remember another GM actually using my most notable NPCs. I remember using the other GMs and I remember them correcting me if I was playing them out of character.
Another thing that helped is that we had different areas of interrest. I loved character building, another GM loved building rules, etc.
Your sharing narrative experience with your player is interesting… so your player ended up being GM by proxy, then!
It probably would have been simpler if he had been the GM and you supported him with the rules/world stuff he wasn’t comfortable with.
@ChattyDM:
Most good DMs I’ve played with were rather good at improv. I get your point, though: improv is not everyone’s cup of tea.
Not sure 100% improv all the time would make for good campaigns either…
@Psygnnosed:
Wow! That’s must’ve been a great session! Feels kind of one of those ‘murder mystery’ party rpg 🙂
I love that idea!
Eric Maziades last blog post..DM vs Player
Letting go of the ending! Gah! My weakness! I’d love to fuel player investment and narrative control, but *it* is hard to let go of the ending. One of the thoughts I’ve had on it is to make a very black-and-white ending (The Ring will fall into the fires of Mordor), but leave the “how” wide open (Does Frodo throw it in? Does HE get thrown in with the ring? Does Sam throw it in? Does Legolas, on the back of an Eagle flying over the volcano?).
With a clear climax, you don’t have an aimless bumbling-about campaign, but leaving all the details and implications open, you give the players some narrative opportunity.
I hope it works for me!
@Michael M:
That’s pretty much how I go about it too – I plan an ending and perhaps a variation.
The “letting go” part is mostly efforts to be opened to subtle suggestions from the players.
Like riding the giant eagle over the volcano and dropping the ring from on high…
Eric Maziades last blog post..DM vs Player