In the last episode, we talked about long-term RPG storytelling and how to get players to follow along with your story over the months or years of your campaign. But what if this is entirely the wrong approach. What if it’s not the DM’s story to keep players following along with at all?
Whose Story Are You Really Telling?
One of the most common assumptions in role-playing games is that the DM brings the story and the players play in it. But is that the way it should be? If the players are controlling the main characters in it, isn’t that, by definition, their story?
This might seem like a moot point, but it can mean a big difference in how the game plays out.
Who gets to decide if the big bad guy is evil or sympathetic? Who gets to decide when murder is justified to forward the party’s goals? Who gets to decide if the players restore the king or usurp the kingdom?
Who gets to decide if they party’s fighting beasts or befriending them?
These kinds of plot points are the story. For many story-focused DMs, they’re on rails: You have to defeat the big bad guy at the clicmatic moment because that’s the ending to the DM’s story. For story-focused DMs, to do anything else feels like they’re not getting to play the character they want in the game.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but by definition, it’s a railroad.
I’d rather set the scene. As the DM, the world is my character, but the players have full freedom to operate within that. So, ideally, they’re deciding how to engage with the big moving pieces of the world.
That doesn’t mean the bad guys do what the players want. And, depending on the bad guy’s motivations, negotiation may not be possible. But if the players want to try a path that I didn’t envision, I’m going to help them come up with a realistic way to try it within the logic of the world. There’s usually at least a path to joining the bad guy if the players want – I don’t mind DMing some fledgling vampires if that’s a deal they want to take (and I won’t feel like it ruined my story if they do, it’s just a different kind of fun to be had).
The characters belong to the PCs, everything about the path those characters take should be up to the players playing them, even if that means the characters in your story don’t act the way you planned.
Is Player Freedom Really Just Chaos?
Even if you’re not the kind of DM who just wants to act out your vision for the story, giving players this kind of control can still feel like opening Pandora’s box.
Not only could the players do some things you really won’t respect them for in the morning, you have to make it happen. You have to describe all the scenes and voice all the characters. Not everyone is great at ad-libbing, and having to come up with the evil necromancer’s depth and a sympathetic reason for his deprivations on the spot can be intimidating.
So, if you’re going to give the players real freedom to make it their story in your world, communication is important. Open communication with the party is the only tool you have for managing that chaos.
Managing the “Chaos” of Party Free Will
If you give the players real freedom, it’s important to build healthy lines of communication.
When the players feel like you’re confrontational and counter-plan against them, they’ll start keeping their plans secret, and that’s not healthy for the game. If the party’s plans are always secret to you, you’ll constantly be caught flat-footed, overcompensate and make mistakes while flailing to catch up. Mistakes here tend to be less “I forgot what this guy was supposed to say,” and more “whoops, the entire army kills the party with extreme prejudice.”
Instead, build a relationship where you’re facilitating the party’s plans:
- You describe the world and what they know of it
- They tell you what they want to do
- You fill in some blanks their characters would know and help them understand how they could make their plans happen
- Then come in the next session ready to play that out.
This way, you still allow the party freedom, but you’re able to plan encounters and maps for each session so their plans get the same attention your’s would have.
Knowing when to break the session is another important trick for managing party freedom. When you’re coming to a decision point where the party may choose to go a direction you’re not prepared for, especially if it’s wide open, that’s a good time to call it a night. Say “Good Game,” give out XP and ask them to let you know what they want to do in the next session. This will give you time to prepare a story that’s appropriate to the characters’ choices.
If you’ve reached a breakpoint where the party could go literally anywhere, usually after they’ve completed an adventure, wrap the session by recapping what else they know and things happening in the world. Ask them to think about what they want to pursue and let you know before you get together again so you can prep.
Even if they don’t tell you what they want to do until the beginning of the next session, you can plan some travel encounters to give you padding. You come into the session, they tell you where they want to go, and that session can be about how they get there. Then you use the break to plan what’s there and explore it in the following session.
Freedom to Tell Everyone’s Story
The surprising thing about freedom is it often leads to a new kind of order.
Once you stop herding players along your path, you open the game up to them following their own. Then you get to find out what these characters really want to do – and maybe the players get to discover that as well.
Once that happens, you can start building adventures that aren’t just about your story, but where your NPCs’ goals and the player characters’ goals intersect.
That’s when you’re telling everyone’s story. And to me, it’s when any tabletop RPG shines. Because no video game, book or movie will ever give you and your players the chance to co-design a story that none of you could tell alone.