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I'm a forever GM and whenever somebody calls me a storyteller I usually correct them by saying I'm a story facilitator. My players are too good, they make "storytelling" and railroading pretty much impossible and I've gotten a lot of credit over the years by just rolling with whatever brilliant idea one of my players came up with.
What I say is WE create a story. I don't tell the story, my players contribute to how it unfolds and the players and DM work together. We also don't tell a story, we create one because the story is made as we go and we don't know where it will end.
Once I realised it wasn't my job as the DM to write down how a problem was supposed to be resolved, I started having a lot more fun. Now I can just think up a situation (that's such a good word to use to describe it, thankyou), note down any groups that might be interested in any part of it and possible rewards for brining it to their attention, and leave the resolution completely blank. Anything my players do is THE way to resolve the situation, without any preconceptions on my part that would bias my response to them.
That is similar to what I would do. I would ensure the setting is set up and the main characters were fleshed out, but then adapt to what decisions they make to move the story along. They may have stopped the kidnappers by accident but the princess needs to be relocated so I then need to adjust. This is the story that the players are involved in and their actions will cause me to adapt on the fly.
As a guy who does both, write stories and run games--there are very different need sets when it comes to spinning words and running a game. As an author, you're responsible for dialogue on all sides, you need to decide who your main characters are, who your secondary characters are--what they want, whether or not a character is just a walk on or the third spear carrier on the left. You're needing to present not only scene, setting, mood, characterization, how that character sees the world around him or herself and using description to develop character. In a game, you're really a world designer and conflict engineer, providing antagonists and allies and anyone else in between. You give setting and mood for your main characters to act within. The players take on the role of the main characters and protagonists and dice are used to decide what happens by chance or when the outcomes are uncertain. Then as conflict engineer, you decide what the logical consequences are for the actions your players have taken. Who will they have helped? Who will they have pissed off, and what are they going to do about it? As for theme? Your players will be the ones who decide that more than you will. And it will emerge organically. Writing fiction is a lot harder in many ways than running a game. A LOT harder. In a game where players have real agency, you do a lot more that's extemporaneous and decisions you need to make in the moment.
I always like to have two or three loose solutions in my back pocket when creating situations. Mostly to make sure it could actually be solved within their means and I hadn't made an impossible dead end for them; but also in case they get stuck and draw a blank, I can throw them a few loose ideas/avenues to follow. How they fill in the details is up to them, but I don't wed myself to any single solution. Like you say: whichever answer they choose is going to be the correct answer 👍
One of the first games I ran I accidentally put a player in a burning building without any idea of how they were getting out. They couldn't come up with anything and just gave up and died. I've also made the opposite mistake of expecting a specific solution and having them frustrated trying to find it or when they didn't want to use it. Best to at least have a concept of how the problem can be solved, with enough room for them to come up with their own solutions. They always surprise me, and that's the most fun. Characters I expected to die have become recurring NPCs, and vice versa.
I think the DM is a storyteller, but not in the traditional sense. The players and the DM, in collaboration, tell a story. The DM builds the world, plot, and NPCs ect. While the players are the ones that make the choices and move within the world and the story being told.
Even good traditional storytellers tell the storyteller tell the story in collaboration with the listeners and leave gabs in the story to be filled out by their imagination.
For me, it's the same take, different terms My take is : story-telling is when the story already exists. In RPG we play first, then the story is the outcome. Hence not storytelling.
The DM sets out the scenarios but the story comes from the interaction between the players, the DM and the dice. However, the Scenarios drive the story so I do see why some DMs call themselves storytellers, it's just that they are not the only storyteller: so are the players and the dice.
Correct. The GM is a storyteller just as much if not moreso than players. They create the setting, the NPCs and they react and steer the adventure in response to the PCs. It is collaborative storytelling (including the GM). The argument that the GM is not a storyteller is odd.
@@darthknight1 I think the distinction being made here is that a DM who believes their role is "story teller" rather than "story facilitator" is doomed to railroad the players.
@@wnussbau I want a dm who has a narrative in mind, a story that'll make us laugh and cry, all pre-written in their mind before we ever sit down. Then they need to keep it flexible and shift as needed to not railroad players. A good dm has to be flexible in their storytelling. Someone who just "facilitates" story is as bad as someone who railroads imo. Both are gonna be boring games.
@@unB10 spot on the people saying that the players have a hand in the story are correct but it is more complex then that. There is an overriding story being told and it is written and told by the game master simply because no one can prepare for the infinite number of things a player might choose to do. I hate to say this because I can be guilty of derail gm planes in very off the rails kinda of way. If you sit down to play at a table you are alrrad6 giving up the agency to go away from what yhe gm has prepared. Gm's that are better at preparation will have more options that are possible but if you refuse to at least go on the adventure or adventures that the gm has read to be played you may as well not have shown up. To be clear I am not saying that the gm should write his adventures in a way that does not allow players to choose how they are going to go on them but they should rrsonbly expect the players to go on them. And they should have a fairly good idea of several possible endings to the adventure, bare minimum of 2 those being succes or failure. The players actions with in the adventure should be there own and those actions and the luck of the dice should resolve each individual encounter but a prepared gm should have planned for as many possible actions and outcomes as they possibly can. In my view the gm is operating on a lose branching script to react to his players improve to the situations presented to them. One more warning to some players if you commonly come up with off the wall things that your gm did not prepare for be prepared to be railroaded. Most people acyaly want to play the game not just have the session ended because you did something farenough out of your he's expectations that the adventure litterly can not continue, or when you come up with some plan that litterly ends an adventure in 20 min be prepared to be done playing in 20 min. I am not condoning a gm not taking the effort to plan out what you might do just saying be prepared when you go beyond what was prepared for. So for me a gm is very much a story teller but the story is not prescripted. Sorry for the ramble. .😜
@@unB10 I used to think that way until I sat through too many "story" games where the GM was using the game as an outlet for his fan fiction novella. I'll take a tomb of horrors meat grinder with an impartial ref over a gm that treats it like a predetermined story.
Or, in many cases, the story was written by the module author, in some cases decades ago. I seriously can't wait to find a group where the GM runs a game in collaboration with the players. I see all these good advice channels but haven't found any one who runs a game in the same way as these advice videos.
@@Tiyev Even then the prewritten story should change and evolve in meaningful ways once play begins. No two tables truly run the same module exactly the same without significant railroading.
@@diogoazevedo5908 Prep helps, but no amount of prep will prevent you from ever having to improvise. But, try not to panic. Keep it simple. Most situations can be handled with little more than just considering possibilities and using skill rolls whenever it's interesting to have a chance to fail or succeed. The players absolutely will do things you didn't think of... probably sooner rather than later. Some tools that help are lists of names for when you need to pull an NPC out of your arse, and even some random tables to help build encounters, situations, places, ect. But even if you just have to wing it, pretty much just focus on keeping the game moving. You can also ask for a quick bathroom break sometimes, to give you a moment to think. (That one's literally from Matt Mercer...)
You're right but... the world outside of the characters' influence does have its own story and the DM does tell that story insofar as to how it might impact the characters and vice-versa as their sphere of influence grows. In my campaigns I often have a couple of major plot threads going, and a myriad of smaller ones of various scales - any of which the characters might hear of and decide to interact with - affecting their outcome, and the flow of the world, at that point. Diaries of expected events and what factions do, and don't know, are key!
The Storyteller System by White Wolf/Onyx Path, used in settings like World of Darkness, Chronicles of Darkness, Exalted, etc. The GM is actually called the Storyteller. However, the Storyteller's role is to create a world that the players react to in an INTERACTIVE story. One of the best descriptions of TTRPGs that I've ever heard is it's like a campfire story where everyone gets to contribute.
I agree, Lol, I do alot of the no nos luke says not 2 do in his videos, but I keep coming back because he has alot of good advice, but there's alot of different ways 2 do they same thing. I was old school, started with star frontiers. But if you wanna tell a story WITH you players and be a storyteller I suggest ANY PBTA game. That prolly fits your gaming needs better than D&D does. I been running guided play Starforged for a few months and I'm kicking myself for not trying it sooner. It hits all my check boxes. And can emulate any setting with little work. I'm running a 40k campaign now and I'm having so much fun.
@@chuckchavez7715 Exactly, PbtA is a "storygame", rather than "roleplay game". In a "roleplay game" the player acts through the character actions, but, when players can interact with the world without a the acts of a character ("dissociated mechanichs") then we can start saying the game is more a "storygame" than "roleplay game"
I am an all-homebrew GM that doesn't prep for individual tables because it is my players that write the stories (and 20 years of lore in the same universe means I know the geographies and NPCs pretty well). I self-describe as a storyteller, not because there is a story in place before the session starts, but because it is my job as a storyteller to use my words to make what the players are choosing feel like they are the protagonists in an epic legend (a collaborate story-telling as you mentioned). But at the end of the day they steer the ship and set the stakes and I definitely agree that railroading the players or taking away their agency is never acceptable.
What i have come to realize over the past year is that a game master is more a scenario designer (more a kin to level designers in video games) than they are storytellers. They design the secanrio that the players are going to interact with. They shouldn't be excited about the story they are going to tell, instead they should excited to put their scenario in front of their players to see how their players are going to interact with scenario, excited to see how the players deal with the challenges they've put forward in that scenario, and excited to see what outcomes are going to occur due to those interactions.
As a DM I do say I'm telling a story with my games, BUT I tell the story with my players and the dice. We tell this story together. I set up the world, the villains, and tell the players what is happening around them, but it will forever be up to them to decide what they do and how they do it. Of course we have an agreement that they make characters willing to go on the primary adventure to some extent. But the players dictate the results.
Part of what I like with being a GM is building ideas off of what the players come up with. Sometimes it'll be an out of character comment that inspires an idea, sometimes it'll be allowing a clever yet zany idea to work (even if only once), and other time it'll be figuring out how the consequences of their actions might come back to haunt them. All of which are often things I wouldn't have thought of myself, or are just better than I otherwise had planned.
My group disbanded a while ago now, but I remember telling them that I was the GM to help the GROUP tell a story through the game. It wasn't me, it was mainly them. I take liberties to change things on the fly based on what they did/do, even if it means we started a module and it turns into mostly homebrew by the end. I think I told them at one point that I try to make a living world for them to interact with, which means the character actions do change what happens in the world. Maybe not the big picture now, but they could later. If a GM just wants to tell their OWN story, they need to go write a book instead.
Great video! I agree, letting go of any sort of prescriptive story is the best thing you can do for yourself as a GM. Crafting story with your players is not only easier but WAY more fun than doing everything yourself
DM railroading us with amazing cuality encounters make for the party, intersting maps, cool npc and well designed enemies > DM that give us all the freedom but as everyting is improvised all the encounters and interactions feel hurried on, prefabricated and generic
I also hate the common narrative of, "The players derailed MY plans" - No, the players derailed the villains plans. For example, In my Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure there is a main villain linked to the players who set up the events of the latest adventure they went on. Essentially, they hoped the goody goody adventurers would clear out the undead army and then she could use the rift to the Abyss for her own means afterwards...Well the players decided to cover the hole to the rift with a large stone, an immoveable rod ontop and then dredged up enough sand to cover the entire chasm so that nobody could ever find the rift again... Now the villain is currently searching the Azure Sea looking for this... The players foiled her plans, not mine. And I made sure to let the players know what they have inadvertently done afterwards...because their decision really, really messed up the villains plans.
I love when my players give me little vines and ideas to weave into the story. They have inspired creatures, magic and so much more. Group brain is always superior.
There needs to room for the DM to be surprised (and roll with it!) Matt comes up with great NPC villains and troubles, but it's Laura that put Grog in the locket, flying him up to release him downwards. Group effort.
Storyteller is one of many hats a good GM wears. I agree that players should not be railroaded for the sake of "plot" but engaging in any ttrpg is an act of collaborative storytelling. I respectfully disagree.
This anecdote is an example of what neither I, nor anyone I know, means when they say the GM is a storyteller. A GM absolutely *is* a storyteller in the sense that the world they describe conveys a sequence of events, most often indirectly. When you describe two trails of blood leading from the mouth of a cave, one in the form of drips and paw-shaped smears, and another in the form of bloody, booted footprints exiting the cave, you've told a story of a wounded beast fleeing into a cave and the hunter that successfully killed it. That's a story. The GM's world is constructed with a series of stories. The anecdote here is an example of a dictatorial NARRATOR, not a storyteller. *Everyone* at the table is a storyteller.
I am fairly new to running Call of Cthulhu and I am currently running Horror on the orient express. I have already found myself moifying and removing content based on the actions of the invesitgators actions. I have run a few modules now and it irritates me how some modules appear to be written on the assumption that players takes certain actions or have certain skills or abilities. I remember one module flat out saying that the investigators cannot solve the main plot of the story on their own or even figure out a solution on their own, they can only do so under the guidance of a really suspisious npc. My players distrusted the npc and took a course of action that I ruled had a similar effect to one of the predetermined outcomes.
not the easiest scenario/campaign you could have chosen , HotOE is cool but is notorious for being prep heavy, as well as having some scenarios that are inferior to the others. I love it to death, but I would have chosen something a wee bit lighter. Have fun :)
@@griselame yeah, especially given I havent read all the modules yet. I am going to try and read them ahead of time and prep each section based on what my characters do and modify them as needed.
She's running a smuggling opperation where she kidnaps these dragons and harvests parts off them that they can regrow (or not) like scales, ichor, wing sail membranes, etc, and sells them on the black market.
I think Professor DungeonMaster on DungeonCraft said it best - a DM is not a storyteller. A DM crafts obstacles for the heroes to overcome. That's it. Notice there is no crafting solutions.; solutions are for the players to figure out.
Had this very conversation with my players last night. A player made the comment of how "it depends on how the DM decides the story goes", which went into a long conversation of how I, the DM, only set up the initial events and run the baddies in response to their goals and your actions. You drive the story. Not me. I'm not writing a book here.
Alternatively, a storyteller could be a game master. I am a writer, and a dm. I created my own story for the session. And threw them into the game. You as a writer need to make your story for the campaign flexible. Players can effect the story. And as a dm, if you can you should work your players characters into the games story
In my most recent campaign, I mostly planned environments and a few major plot points, then figured the players would run with it, and run they did. Probably the only campaign where I wasn't burned out as the DM by the end because I was planning less but planning smarter.
The worst session I ran involved the characters attempting a difficult rescue of some npcs. The difficulty was way too high for them, and as they struggled more and more to achieve their goal I became impatient and started to take away their agency. I wanted to give them a satisfying resolution and set up the next adventure (ie. to tell the story I had already written) so I rushed it and had the npcs rescue themselves. I was not prepared for the characters to fail and so I snatched the whole fun of the adventure from them. The story demanded the npcs be freed, and I didn't care who did it! This was so frustrating for the players that some wanted to quit the multi-year long campaign because of it. I learned my lesson that night.
"Storyteller" in the context of rpg is a person that tells the story created by the group together according to the chosen rules of the system. Also the name of GM in WoD i believe. I feel about the dice the same you feel about the DM tho. Stupid dice stealing my agency instead of someone making an informed decision that will guide the story in an interesting direction. I no longer play D&D because the "gamy" element makes me sleep - I want to get the combat/challenge/etc over with and continue >telling< the story, not fight against random dice rolls. Hence if I DO play I use the most gimmicked builds imaginable to get over everything mechanical faster. I run d&d a lot cause it makes people liking fights/mechanics happy and I could use mats/minis instead of trying to wrap my head around it and kinda use this time to think what's next while the boring stuff happens on board.
I agree. Running my first campaign now and I wanted to tell a story, but I realized I have to run a game. I wasn't trully making things difficult to the point that death was a real thing. I was too involved with telling a story instead of playing the game. Now it's different, I strive to run a good game. I just know what the plot is, the players have to decide how to go through it.
A GM is a storyteller in a similar way to a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book. You have the scenes, but the players choose how they resolve and where to go from there.
Question, how do you avoid being a storyteller when you are running a module which effectively is a pre-ordained narrative? Yes, players interact with the storyline but there is a meta plot which the players are following, especially in organized gameplay.
The problem with these kinds of discussions is that the term "storyteller" is a very fraught term, and it means very different things to very different people. There are many ways in which a GM should NOT be a traditional storyteller. But there are a lot of ways in which storytelling skills are absolutely essential to being a good GM. It's kind of a false binary, but the binary endpoints are more theoretical than real.
There's 2 rival false agendas at play here. 1. Some GMs have a clear story in mind and take agency away from the players, though not always deliberately. So when the players decide to goof off and go in the opposite direction from the story direction, the GM tries to put the players back on the rails. This leads to player frustration. 2. A growing number of GMs want their games to be like Critical Role / Dimension 20 / insert your favourite live play here. They think they can MAKE a story happen like CR C1 or C2. But of course, the PC choices and the dice rolls influence the outcome. But it must be hard to be Luke when more and more players want a live play type experience and expect the GM to create it, when he clearly doesn't want the players to have fun in that way
Storyteller =/= railroader But you've been over this topic numerous times. It boils down to semantics. I consider myself a storyteller but I make sure that my players have full agency and that everything they do affects the story. The world is a living place with lots of things going on, I decide what that is and the players decide where to go and how they affect everything. As you said, a collaboration.
As a Forever DM, especially one that does a lot of homebrewing, I strongly disagree. In order to create a setting that the players can get immersed in when they're playing, a certain amount of history is required, and that history must be consistent so that it will hold up under the more nitpicky players scrutiny, lest they stop the campaign every 5 seconds to say "but before, you said..." or "Well/Um, actually..."
I've never been good at remembering history that I've created. That's definitely a flaw for me as a GM. That said, if you've ever studied history, it's full of plot holes. The stories that are passed down are often biased one way or the other, people will recall events differently, and people tend to create myths surrounding certain people or places for political and social reasons. One of my favourite quotes about history is that "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. " - L.P. Hartley History is messy. If your players think that the history that they received is always a perfect representation of the reality of that time, they're naive. 😀
@Nathan Trail Just write/type it down. Campfire or WorldAnvil are best since they were made for that, but anormal word document (or an equivalent) works just as well.
Broad strokes, I agree. Stories are the results of how the players interact with the game world. I think that a game systems should be as transparent to that interaction as possible. While dice rolls are representative of some randomness they should not end up being determinant. Fun should be the point. Bad luck is fine in moderation, but luck should not be the the reason a party is wiped. The GM sometimes needs to tip the scales in the favor of fun and continued adventure.
TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling. The players drive the story. If the players aren't driving the story something is wrong. Note I am saying this as a GM. If you want to create an amazing story experience then work with your players to find out what makes them tick. That's how you get a story driven game.
My favorite thing as the DM is setting a chance for something (ie. Who the bbeg attacks or whether a minion runs away, etc) and letting fate (dice) decide the outcome.
I disagree with the premise. The DM is one of 3 story tellers. There are 3 story tellers in a TTRPG like D&D. 1. The Dungeon Master. 2. The players. 3. The Dice. Storytelling does NOT equal Rail Roading. In fact my players have outright said they hate west march style TTRPG playstyle with no main story. My players WANT an epic narrative to follow. I am the story teller. I tell them WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHY the story is happening. The players choices tell HOW the story happens and the Dice also tell HOW by adding an element of random chance. My group hates feeling completely directionless in an open world. We all agree to participate in the DMs story.
So my stance on this as a GM is a GM is a Storyteller, they create the story of world and everything in it. However the players are also storytellers, the create and control the story of their characters. It is a cooperative storytelling game. This is how I GM for my groups and this is what my players come to expect and out of it we've created some really cool and funny sessions. We work together and get really cool concepts for characters. I also ask them for (vague) input on what they as a player want for their character to go towards both mechanically and story wise and make sure to incorporate this. All GM and players are storytellers in this game, but not in the traditional sense and I think the word storyteller is what leads to so many issues.
Interesting POV... I always thougt of me as the one "telling" the story... just not the one "writing" it, not the one "deciding" how it develops... But i really like the idea that i in fact am not "the one" telling the story, but one of "those" telling it. But thats the power of language. I will definately go with **"we tell this story together!"** instead of *"i'll tell the story you write."* Thanks for this realization!
I always say that rpgs are improvised theatre plays with a referee that has certain control over the story that is collectively told, but neither a God, nor someone who sits down kids and reads them a story before bed. Yes, as a DM you have prepared a story based on the background of the players choosen characters, and the setting, and the lore of the world where's happening. But that's it. If something alters that reality, your responsability is to go with the flow and not push towards what you had prepared. If all of this is clear, the DM can be a storyteller. But their not (I'm not in my case) the ONLY storyteller in the table.
Some of us use the "Storyteller" name not because we're frustrated writers looking to narrate our novels, some of us do it because in White Wolf's World or Darkness and Chronicles of Darkness the GM is called the Storyteller.
And they are called that in those games because they are a storyteller. Everyone at the table is. Especially the GM. Bad railroading by GMs will always exist, but that doesn't make GMs not storytellers.
YASSSSS! Thank you. We are "Story Facilitators" not "Story Tellers." When my players ask me how they're supposed to solve something I look at them and shrug and say "I don't know. I create problems, not solutions." The most fun in the game is when the players overcome things that I'm thinking "I have no idea how they're going to solve this problem" because they ALWAYS end up finding a way.
As a "Story Facilitator" though, sometimes you get players who get stuck and really can't think of a solution, or can only think of the worst possible one. In those situations, sometimes it's better for the DM to just take over. They should offer the reins to the players, but if no one wants to drive the story, it's the DM's job to lead them. I tried to run a Murder Mystery adventure once and the only thing the players could think of was to round up all the suspects at sword point, force them into a room, and try to intimidate each and every one to get a confession. I had to have an NPC tell the players to try searching their rooms and basically point out every clue to them and contradiction in the stories that the suspects gave. It doesn't help that the players refuse to take notes during the session for some reason, so they cannot remember anything that isn't happening to them right now.
@@avengingblowfish9653 sounds like a party that would fit better in undermountain than a murder mystery. Not every player/dm is a good match. Not every group/dm is a good match. It entirely depends on the type of game everyone wants to play. Every play style is valid, as long as everyone involved is on board. Not saying that you do this, but I’ve also found that a lot of DMs worry about silence at the table. Sometimes giving people space to think is helpful. As is the phrase “are you sure you want to do that?” When someone is about to jump into an instadeath situation without realizing it. And of course, sometimes it just takes stopping the game for a second and explaining that not everything can be solved with threats to villagers. Hint at what Sherlock does, or Matlock if you’re old enough to know what that was. Some people do get hung up when put on the spot. There is nothing wrong with player guidance in those moments.
I have a whole stack of official D&D adventures that have the players captured at some point during the module, and these are essential parts of the adventures. These adventures never run well when I have run them, and now I just don't. Some are fixable, like Curse of the Azure Bonds, where I have the ambush, capture and memory wipe happen off-screen unbeknownst to the players, while the module expects you to play out the combat. Stealing player agency is bad. Even when TSR tells you to do it.
One of the best designed campaigns I saw after the 5e playtest came out was Murder in Baldur's Gate and it had this in spades. The scenarios it gave worked perfectly well if the players refused to interact with them at all and just went to do their own things.
Depending on the game system, the GM or DM is sometimes called the "Storyteller". In Firefly, the GM is called the Audience Member. It's written in the perspective that the GM is watching a play from the audience's seats. So while "storyteller" isn't always accurate, it's not necessarily the fault of the GM calling themselves that. Sometimes it is, which is fair.
Well put. If anything players have more control of the story than the dm does. The only "story" the dm should prepare is the one that happens if the PCs never intervene.
If I could like this video more than once I would! The fun of being a GM for me is creating the world, NPCs,and situations. Then watching the story unfold in front of me as a collaborative experience. The players are living THEIR STORY in the world I’ve created for them. I think that is the beauty of these games. Well said.
My personal perspective on what a DM's job is is basically to be a third person narrator, not the writer, and there's an important distinction there. Your job is to narrate the world around the characters and how their actions effect it, but not actually control the main characters (well, except normally the main antagonists).
If you play the white wolf system "Vampire the Masquerade or others" all of their books refer to the Game Master as the Story Teller, so that could be where part of the term come from. One term I heard some where and really liked was "Lead Narrator"
While the story comes from everyone, if anything the players are 'more so' the story tellers than the DM. As I DM i consider it my responsibility to set up the world, set up the inciting event(s), and then to provide reasonable rational reactions to the players actions. Here's the seen, here's the NPCs, this is where you're at and what you know, now what do you do? Oh you walked outside? Okay because you did that you now see xyz, what do you do next?
Shouldn't the DM figure out how the scenario would resolve without player intervention, then allow the players to change the outcome (I would assume for the better).
Pedantic nitpick: In World of Darkness, the GM is literally called the Storyteller by the rules. Regardless, as a GM of 20 years now I agree with everything you said here. :)
This may well be the most helpful and meaningful observation or piece of advice I have heard from you. Not that I understood it the way you explain it (until now...) The highest compliment I have ever felt I received as a DM was one player who had been playing for a good amount of time, referring to the town they were "working out of," that he thought he could walk up to any door and and knock. I would be able to tell him who was there and what was going on. The truth was not every one but a good number of them I did. I didn't know how the players would effect the townsfolk but I did know what they were doing without influence of the players. It was their job to figure out how they fit in to all of it. Listening to this, now I understand. I am theater manager, prop master, I'm responsible for lighting and stage construction, I may have something to say about the plot but the script is not mine and the players are their own directors.
Hard disagree. The problem is, it's not the just the GM. The GM AND Players are story tellers. When both groups get to add and create a story, then a good campaign occurs.
For what I understood from the Video it is just said that the gm is not an exposition tool and the story is driven by the players and described by the GM. The GM is who puts the World and the players move the Story.
All I do as a storyteller is create the story in the background, the story behind the players story, the thoughts and results of their actions, how the bbeg reacts in a realistic way, how the world changes because my players are in it. At most, and entirely because my players are mostly new and want more combat tone, I come up with situations for them to go and combat or negotiate, but other than designing the world and deciding how NPCs act and react, I do as little as possible. I have solutions to problems that my characters can discover (or not), and those exist solely to give them a way out, but if they go another way, I only have them roll to make it make sense (there was a mineshaft incident once). I give it more and more rewarding to come up with impossible situations that I can't find a way out of, because then I have the fun of watching my players find the way out that I didn't think of. In this way, they actually make me a smarter person and a better DM. Glad to hear that I'm on the right track.
That is NOT what a Storyteller does. That is pure railroading. It is the Storyteller's job to facilitate a cooperative story between them and the players. Go read Vampire the Masquerade or any of its sister games or editions and READ what the job of a Storyteller is. Even though they call them different things also read Theatrix and Ars Magica.
Chiming in to parrot the thought that situations should not be given concrete outcomes. Best adventures I've ran ended with the party doing all the creative work and finding solutions I'd have never considered: Planting a chemical bomb inside the soon-to-be-reanimated corpse in the necromancer's lair such that it explodes once animated was the craziest end to a mega-villian finale. Not a single player was present for the final encounter, just a puff of smoke in a tower, and the village barkers announcing the death a couple days later.
I'm not far into the video, but I'm currently looking for a game setting to make a fun April fool's one shot, and you just mentioned the ship setting in the one shot you participated in and now I've got the inspiration I needed. Many thanks, will resume watching the video now.
I play with one of those storyteller DMs. Thankfully he continues to improve in that regard, but I agree and hate it when my character's decisions do not matter in a pre-ordained story. Honestly, if this DM had not improved, I probably would have not joined the next game. I did confront him on it though, so communication can help such situations.
The way I’ve always thought of it is: I’m an architect of the building, not the tour guide. But overall, storyteller never bothered me and still doesn’t. It doesn’t inherently deny that it’s a collaborative storytelling game. I’m still telling a story just as much as my players are.
I have a lot of lore and story in my current campaign but I told my players that if they want the lore they’ll have to actually go looking for it. The story itself is more like jumbled plot points that are all interchangeable depending on their location on the map. Plus in our session zero, I told them how they get there is up to them. Basically they have the freedom to do anything, learn anything and progress the story only if they so choose.
This is more like a pet peeve than a hot take. You don't like GM's role being described as storyteller because of the connotation that comes with it, and that's fair. It is important to understand the distinction. There are certainly plenty of horror stories of GMs that take this description in exactly this manner.
Something I still struggle with as a DM... but I'm actively working to counteract these tendencies, and have scrapped several ideas to give power back to the players instead of forcing things to go the way I thought they would.
I feel this misconception tends to happen more in Call of Cthulhu. Players can change some things, but how are they going to alter the course of a story that is determined by entities as powerful and difficult to understand as those featured in these kinds of stories? Even I sometimes think that players feeling like they don't matter is the point of cosmic horror.
Well your fundamental role in CoC is an investigator. You find a mystery and you investigate it. Obviously the main branch that can happen is: A) the ivestigators solve the mystery B) The investigators don't solve the mystery. And you have contingencies for those two things. It sometimes gets railroady mainly because a lot of DMs have this (often subconscious) belief that skill checks don't matter. If you don't solve the mystery they'll just solve it for you, so that the plot continues. The common D&D equivalent is that when the party ranger tries to track the goblins back to their lair but fails, some random NPC comes in with knowledge of how to get there so the PCs can get "back on track" and go to where the DM wants them to be.
I do agree with the points of the video. Nobody wants a DM that has all the story figured out. But I don't see a problem with using the word "storyteller" as long as one recognizes the DM is not the only storyteller in this situation. I also think every game system do has it's weaknesses for different stories. All that said, great video. I just don't agree with the word or even the concept being a problem per se.
I think it's important to mention that the type of DM you need to be really depends on the players. If the players are actively engaged in the story and carrying the plot forward on their own, a good DM should just stand back and let them. However, there are a lot of players who want a railroad from a good storyteller DM. They typically are not comfortable with role playing or taking the initiative in creating their own story and just want to play D&D like a video game with the DM delivering the cut scenes and telling them where to go next. There is no wrong way to play DnD as long as everyone is having fun.
The only time I regret flubbing a dice roll was a more harsher weather (mainly to protect my pirates) vs their young black dragon with a Tortle Paladin on it's back. Because the dragon busted the ship from the underside. XP The other players were fighting the land pirates or shooting onto the deck to burn it down.
GM: "Welcome to my game. I will be your storyteller for this campaign." Player A: "In other words, a railroader. Got it. Ima out. Bye." Player B: "Whew, dodged a bullet on that one didn't we." Player A: "Ya, nothing like a nat 20 Dex check!" Player B: "Isn't that an Insight check?" Player A: "Hmmmmmm...."
Saying that Game Masters isn't Storytellers is like saying that an Author that write a choose your own adventure books isn't an Author. Not giving the players choices is just bad GMing, but even if that players has choices the DM still have to structure the story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Even though there can be different path to get from the beginning to the end and there can be different outcomes, structure is still important. Just because the players, the dice and the system has an influence on the story don't mean that the DM is a storyteller just that a good DM will let the players be storytellers too.
I am very very fortunate that I have a table that loves my homebrew setting and is very invested in my NPCs and setting and what thematic ideas I put out there, so the storytelling aspect of my DMing does thrive. BUT. I have always recognized that it’s not about me and what I want and I never step in the toes of my players desires. I give them a plot, as well as deviating side mission, and content that’s very centered on their characters, and let them take the ball.
The GM should tell YOUR story not theirs if they claim story telling.. meaning i want to give someone the fantasy they are asking for. NOT the story i write. What makes a story is not knowing what comes next. which is the PLAYERS and the ROLLS. The GM is just the "foundation of the house not the details. you design what it is on the insides." is what i tell my players
Some GMs may refer to themselves as "storytellers" if they got their start in World of Darkness games where the name for the GM is literally "Storyteller". So it may just be a hold over habit from that system.
I think this video gets into semantics, which is ok just I feel deep down a DM can still look at their role as a storyteller. It's just that the player should also be an active storyteller. Regardless is such an important lesson that many DMs need to hear.
I agree with points of this issue, but I feel it's important we describe an RPG as a Gamemaster crafting a narrative, while the players interact with said narrative. At that point, *collectively*, the table is telling a story.
I'm running a campaing with my friends, and they were all new to d&d. I basically not only have to make the plothooks, but also all the others stuff like thinking at how they could solve something, I was even thinking about what the character should have done considering their background that (as they were new) I co-writed, but everything changed the last session. My players matured, they've studied the rules, they've finally totally fallen in love with the game AND they are understanding their character, they're not anymore ankward at acting and thinking like their character at point that I don't know anymore what they might do! I loved the feelings, but after that session, i was scared, as I wouldn't be able anymore to offer the right piece of story, but then, a second before findinding this video, I tough "wait, I don't have to create anything, I Just have to offer situations, and my player will solve It the way they're character would!"
A lesson I learned long ago. I do run a linear game, which is not what Luke is talking about. However, a particular section of it had to go a certain way or else it wouldn't work, so to speak. I realized it was no longer linear and became a railroad. Certain events must happen. The PCs must do this. I had to get rid of it, and I did. Linear campaigns are fine, but the players must do it their way. The players decide how they resolve whatever the plot point is. I've run Dragonheist twice. The first group joined Force Grey willingly and wholeheartedly and had the Good Guys Win ending. The Zehntarim while not the Villain still ended up as their enemies. They eventually fought and killed Yaggra. In the second group, a player joined the Zhentarim (who were not the Villain). Davil became a sort of father figure to him. Yaggra became his girlfriend. The Zhentarim became defacto allies to the party. As the party as a whole did join Force Grey they had the Good Guys win ending too, but this time with Zhentarim support and while they didn't get the Vault money were enriched by other means such as taking over House Gralhund.
To be fair, I refer to myself as a storyteller, but in a broader sense of the term. The only parts of the story I tell are "as we begin, x thing is happening, and your character is affected in y way." And then how the world around them reacts and changes based on their actions and choices, or lack thereof. So I guess you're right, I'm more of a narrator, rather than a storyteller... my bad lol
Oooh I can think of a list of DMs I’ve met that I could send this video to. That’s one of the biggest truths we should tell most DMs. But, I wonder how this works with premade adventures…
Exactly what I was going to comment. This is a great advice for homebrew campaigns, but I wonder how well that translates into a premade adventure. A good GM can often adapt the story progression to respond to the players actions, but that might come at the expense of cohesion.
I refer to TTRPGs often as collaborative storytelling games exactly because of that three-party description you gave of GM + Players + Rules. I am *a* storyteller as the GM, and my players are storytellers. And the dice/rules are helping. But the fact that it's a collaboration and the fact that I foreground player agency and the impact of characters' actions doesn't mean I'm *not* a storyteller.
Question for you, good sir! What if the one-shot session is advertised in the manner that you derise. In other words, going in, the players KNOW that this is a highly-railroaded adventure. I run a convention one-shot where 4-6 players choose from about 20 premade characters in a real-world/current-day scenario. All the characters are involved in a tragic accident (most are passengers on a bus) and it's basically a shared near-death experience. As they progress through, each character watches scenes in their own life - either an historical scene, something happening currently, or something in the future (much like Dicken's Christmas Carol) (Some of the scenes allow interaction with NPCs, so it's not 100% "cut-scene" driven.) The role-play encourages the players to interact with each other to talk about their lives and experiences, and to discover how each of them is somehow connected to the others. This all culminates at the end when the player decides the character's fate, and we discuss why they made their decision. I've run this several times over the years and with one exception, the players all had a great experience. Perhaps it's not your cup of tea, and I totally respect it. For my D&D campaigns, it is as you prescribe - a collaboration between me and the players to develop a shared narrative. But, I think, if the players know up front that this doesn't fit the "standard" rpg model, it's not as bad as you describe. Not only that, I'd never run a railroad-style adventure in anything other than a one-shot.
I think a one-shot is a lot more geared towards being railroaded because of the time constraints. So really going in, most people expect a lot less freedom than you'd get in an ongoing campaign.
mm i wanna say here as a DM i love story telling and i love to be a story teller and it helps a lot actually to build good DnD sessions what u have said is correct about player agency but as a story teller here i build only the world and stories in it from start and to end (according to what i hope for) but if players have any other idea on how things should work or stuff like that i adjust my story to fit them because as a story teller i trust all my players to be story tellers with me with equal if not more agency more than me so..storytelling as essence is not really bad i would say..and i am open for discussion for sure ^ ^ sorry if my english isn't good "i am working/talking" right now so i am a bit hasty
Was in a game like this. After 5 sessions that were still part of the "prelude", driving the group to where they might actually be able to make meaningful decisions that affect the world (or more likely not), I was done. Really was feeling like I was trapped in someone's book, and each time I tried to do something meaningful or make a push to see if my character was even relevant, it was passed over in favor of what was progressing their novel. Other things I've seen at tables is a player describing their action, and then the GM further describing it almost as if the player didn't. Even things like "your character thinks...this" and "your character believes...that". Thankfully no "your character does...this", as of yet. Granted domination, illusion, and fear effects do exist, and I can roll with that without any loss of agency, but without such effect, my character is mine with which to interpret how they behave, think, act, and feel. Definitely needs to be a group effort to tell a shared story that progresses (however it does) by chance and by character motivation. From the GM perspective, yes - set the stage, describe the world and how it reacts, and otherwise be the senses for the PCs; but no - don't force a narrative that the group hasn't created through play. Events, triggers, situations, scenarios, scenes, and so on, are important tools to use. Some players might want to turn off their brains and ride the rails, while others want to get full immersion and escape into the fantasy under their own power. GMs and Players should be at the table that meets their collective expectations.
I like to run sandbox campaigns where events culminate into a larger picture. In other words, I let the players choose the adventures they want to explore through side quests with a few hidden plot hooks here or there. This makes a lot of sessions very self-contained, so it is almost like having a one-shot every session, with the occasional scenario requiring two or three sessions. It is only after a team history has been built up sufficiently when I find ways to connect the dots, and make it look like I had the long game already planned out. The players create the story for me. Obviously this strategy won't work for every group. It requires very proactive players who love to RP and think independently. If your players are not self-motivated to do the things they want to do, and instead depend on you to provide a story and everything for them, it's not going to work.
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Umm...hey Luke, is the response to my comment that says "Text me on telegram" legit?
@@gregorypeltz2702 I guess not. That is a common scam at the moment.
@@HeikoWiebe yeah, that's why I asked instead of following the instructions. Can't be too careful these days.
I'm a forever GM and whenever somebody calls me a storyteller I usually correct them by saying I'm a story facilitator. My players are too good, they make "storytelling" and railroading pretty much impossible and I've gotten a lot of credit over the years by just rolling with whatever brilliant idea one of my players came up with.
What I say is WE create a story. I don't tell the story, my players contribute to how it unfolds and the players and DM work together. We also don't tell a story, we create one because the story is made as we go and we don't know where it will end.
Once I realised it wasn't my job as the DM to write down how a problem was supposed to be resolved, I started having a lot more fun. Now I can just think up a situation (that's such a good word to use to describe it, thankyou), note down any groups that might be interested in any part of it and possible rewards for brining it to their attention, and leave the resolution completely blank. Anything my players do is THE way to resolve the situation, without any preconceptions on my part that would bias my response to them.
That is similar to what I would do. I would ensure the setting is set up and the main characters were fleshed out, but then adapt to what decisions they make to move the story along. They may have stopped the kidnappers by accident but the princess needs to be relocated so I then need to adjust. This is the story that the players are involved in and their actions will cause me to adapt on the fly.
Exactly. Set up a situation and then play it out according to player actions and dice rolls.
As a guy who does both, write stories and run games--there are very different need sets when it comes to spinning words and running a game. As an author, you're responsible for dialogue on all sides, you need to decide who your main characters are, who your secondary characters are--what they want, whether or not a character is just a walk on or the third spear carrier on the left. You're needing to present not only scene, setting, mood, characterization, how that character sees the world around him or herself and using description to develop character.
In a game, you're really a world designer and conflict engineer, providing antagonists and allies and anyone else in between. You give setting and mood for your main characters to act within. The players take on the role of the main characters and protagonists and dice are used to decide what happens by chance or when the outcomes are uncertain. Then as conflict engineer, you decide what the logical consequences are for the actions your players have taken. Who will they have helped? Who will they have pissed off, and what are they going to do about it? As for theme? Your players will be the ones who decide that more than you will. And it will emerge organically.
Writing fiction is a lot harder in many ways than running a game. A LOT harder. In a game where players have real agency, you do a lot more that's extemporaneous and decisions you need to make in the moment.
I always like to have two or three loose solutions in my back pocket when creating situations.
Mostly to make sure it could actually be solved within their means and I hadn't made an impossible dead end for them; but also in case they get stuck and draw a blank, I can throw them a few loose ideas/avenues to follow.
How they fill in the details is up to them, but I don't wed myself to any single solution.
Like you say: whichever answer they choose is going to be the correct answer 👍
One of the first games I ran I accidentally put a player in a burning building without any idea of how they were getting out. They couldn't come up with anything and just gave up and died. I've also made the opposite mistake of expecting a specific solution and having them frustrated trying to find it or when they didn't want to use it.
Best to at least have a concept of how the problem can be solved, with enough room for them to come up with their own solutions. They always surprise me, and that's the most fun. Characters I expected to die have become recurring NPCs, and vice versa.
I think the DM is a storyteller, but not in the traditional sense. The players and the DM, in collaboration, tell a story. The DM builds the world, plot, and NPCs ect. While the players are the ones that make the choices and move within the world and the story being told.
Even good traditional storytellers tell the storyteller tell the story in collaboration with the listeners and leave gabs in the story to be filled out by their imagination.
For me, it's the same take, different terms
My take is : story-telling is when the story already exists. In RPG we play first, then the story is the outcome. Hence not storytelling.
The DM sets out the scenarios but the story comes from the interaction between the players, the DM and the dice.
However, the Scenarios drive the story so I do see why some DMs call themselves storytellers, it's just that they are not the only storyteller: so are the players and the dice.
Correct. The GM is a storyteller just as much if not moreso than players. They create the setting, the NPCs and they react and steer the adventure in response to the PCs. It is collaborative storytelling (including the GM). The argument that the GM is not a storyteller is odd.
@@darthknight1 I think the distinction being made here is that a DM who believes their role is "story teller" rather than "story facilitator" is doomed to railroad the players.
@@wnussbau I want a dm who has a narrative in mind, a story that'll make us laugh and cry, all pre-written in their mind before we ever sit down. Then they need to keep it flexible and shift as needed to not railroad players. A good dm has to be flexible in their storytelling. Someone who just "facilitates" story is as bad as someone who railroads imo. Both are gonna be boring games.
@@unB10 spot on the people saying that the players have a hand in the story are correct but it is more complex then that. There is an overriding story being told and it is written and told by the game master simply because no one can prepare for the infinite number of things a player might choose to do. I hate to say this because I can be guilty of derail gm planes in very off the rails kinda of way. If you sit down to play at a table you are alrrad6 giving up the agency to go away from what yhe gm has prepared. Gm's that are better at preparation will have more options that are possible but if you refuse to at least go on the adventure or adventures that the gm has read to be played you may as well not have shown up. To be clear I am not saying that the gm should write his adventures in a way that does not allow players to choose how they are going to go on them but they should rrsonbly expect the players to go on them. And they should have a fairly good idea of several possible endings to the adventure, bare minimum of 2 those being succes or failure. The players actions with in the adventure should be there own and those actions and the luck of the dice should resolve each individual encounter but a prepared gm should have planned for as many possible actions and outcomes as they possibly can. In my view the gm is operating on a lose branching script to react to his players improve to the situations presented to them. One more warning to some players if you commonly come up with off the wall things that your gm did not prepare for be prepared to be railroaded. Most people acyaly want to play the game not just have the session ended because you did something farenough out of your he's expectations that the adventure litterly can not continue, or when you come up with some plan that litterly ends an adventure in 20 min be prepared to be done playing in 20 min. I am not condoning a gm not taking the effort to plan out what you might do just saying be prepared when you go beyond what was prepared for. So for me a gm is very much a story teller but the story is not prescripted. Sorry for the ramble. .😜
@@unB10 I used to think that way until I sat through too many "story" games where the GM was using the game as an outlet for his fan fiction novella. I'll take a tomb of horrors meat grinder with an impartial ref over a gm that treats it like a predetermined story.
“I create a boundless world and I bind it with rules.” But the story is for the whole table to tell.
Or, in many cases, the story was written by the module author, in some cases decades ago. I seriously can't wait to find a group where the GM runs a game in collaboration with the players. I see all these good advice channels but haven't found any one who runs a game in the same way as these advice videos.
@@Tiyev Even then the prewritten story should change and evolve in meaningful ways once play begins. No two tables truly run the same module exactly the same without significant railroading.
including the DM.
what do you do if they do something that you do not have prepared for ? (im starting as a dm and that thought "haunts me"
@@diogoazevedo5908 Prep helps, but no amount of prep will prevent you from ever having to improvise. But, try not to panic. Keep it simple. Most situations can be handled with little more than just considering possibilities and using skill rolls whenever it's interesting to have a chance to fail or succeed. The players absolutely will do things you didn't think of... probably sooner rather than later. Some tools that help are lists of names for when you need to pull an NPC out of your arse, and even some random tables to help build encounters, situations, places, ect. But even if you just have to wing it, pretty much just focus on keeping the game moving. You can also ask for a quick bathroom break sometimes, to give you a moment to think. (That one's literally from Matt Mercer...)
You're right but... the world outside of the characters' influence does have its own story and the DM does tell that story insofar as to how it might impact the characters and vice-versa as their sphere of influence grows. In my campaigns I often have a couple of major plot threads going, and a myriad of smaller ones of various scales - any of which the characters might hear of and decide to interact with - affecting their outcome, and the flow of the world, at that point. Diaries of expected events and what factions do, and don't know, are key!
The Storyteller System by White Wolf/Onyx Path, used in settings like World of Darkness, Chronicles of Darkness, Exalted, etc. The GM is actually called the Storyteller. However, the Storyteller's role is to create a world that the players react to in an INTERACTIVE story. One of the best descriptions of TTRPGs that I've ever heard is it's like a campfire story where everyone gets to contribute.
I agree, Lol, I do alot of the no nos luke says not 2 do in his videos, but I keep coming back because he has alot of good advice, but there's alot of different ways 2 do they same thing. I was old school, started with star frontiers. But if you wanna tell a story WITH you players and be a storyteller I suggest ANY PBTA game. That prolly fits your gaming needs better than D&D does. I been running guided play Starforged for a few months and I'm kicking myself for not trying it sooner. It hits all my check boxes. And can emulate any setting with little work. I'm running a 40k campaign now and I'm having so much fun.
@@chuckchavez7715 Exactly, PbtA is a "storygame", rather than "roleplay game". In a "roleplay game" the player acts through the character actions, but, when players can interact with the world without a the acts of a character ("dissociated mechanichs") then we can start saying the game is more a "storygame" than "roleplay game"
I am an all-homebrew GM that doesn't prep for individual tables because it is my players that write the stories (and 20 years of lore in the same universe means I know the geographies and NPCs pretty well). I self-describe as a storyteller, not because there is a story in place before the session starts, but because it is my job as a storyteller to use my words to make what the players are choosing feel like they are the protagonists in an epic legend (a collaborate story-telling as you mentioned). But at the end of the day they steer the ship and set the stakes and I definitely agree that railroading the players or taking away their agency is never acceptable.
What i have come to realize over the past year is that a game master is more a scenario designer (more a kin to level designers in video games) than they are storytellers. They design the secanrio that the players are going to interact with. They shouldn't be excited about the story they are going to tell, instead they should excited to put their scenario in front of their players to see how their players are going to interact with scenario, excited to see how the players deal with the challenges they've put forward in that scenario, and excited to see what outcomes are going to occur due to those interactions.
The DM should also be excited by the story he's telling with his players tho.
A collaborative storytelling game is something we should get excited.
As a DM I do say I'm telling a story with my games, BUT I tell the story with my players and the dice. We tell this story together.
I set up the world, the villains, and tell the players what is happening around them, but it will forever be up to them to decide what they do and how they do it.
Of course we have an agreement that they make characters willing to go on the primary adventure to some extent. But the players dictate the results.
Part of what I like with being a GM is building ideas off of what the players come up with. Sometimes it'll be an out of character comment that inspires an idea, sometimes it'll be allowing a clever yet zany idea to work (even if only once), and other time it'll be figuring out how the consequences of their actions might come back to haunt them. All of which are often things I wouldn't have thought of myself, or are just better than I otherwise had planned.
"A princess kidnaps a dragon." I'm stealing that and you can't stop me.
My group disbanded a while ago now, but I remember telling them that I was the GM to help the GROUP tell a story through the game. It wasn't me, it was mainly them. I take liberties to change things on the fly based on what they did/do, even if it means we started a module and it turns into mostly homebrew by the end. I think I told them at one point that I try to make a living world for them to interact with, which means the character actions do change what happens in the world. Maybe not the big picture now, but they could later. If a GM just wants to tell their OWN story, they need to go write a book instead.
Well said!
Great video! I agree, letting go of any sort of prescriptive story is the best thing you can do for yourself as a GM. Crafting story with your players is not only easier but WAY more fun than doing everything yourself
DM railroading us with amazing cuality encounters make for the party, intersting maps, cool npc and well designed enemies > DM that give us all the freedom but as everyting is improvised all the encounters and interactions feel hurried on, prefabricated and generic
I love the flip scenario where a Princess Kidnaps A Dragon. Totally stealing something like this.
I also hate the common narrative of, "The players derailed MY plans" - No, the players derailed the villains plans.
For example, In my Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure there is a main villain linked to the players who set up the events of the latest adventure they went on.
Essentially, they hoped the goody goody adventurers would clear out the undead army and then she could use the rift to the Abyss for her own means afterwards...Well the players decided to cover the hole to the rift with a large stone, an immoveable rod ontop and then dredged up enough sand to cover the entire chasm so that nobody could ever find the rift again...
Now the villain is currently searching the Azure Sea looking for this...
The players foiled her plans, not mine. And I made sure to let the players know what they have inadvertently done afterwards...because their decision really, really messed up the villains plans.
I love when my players give me little vines and ideas to weave into the story. They have inspired creatures, magic and so much more. Group brain is always superior.
Adventures, over here. I found the Illithid.
We know have kobolds, yes, kobolds, as part of the party
@@nadinabbott3991 🤣 “…but they’re just so cute!”
There needs to room for the DM to be surprised (and roll with it!) Matt comes up with great NPC villains and troubles, but it's Laura that put Grog in the locket, flying him up to release him downwards. Group effort.
Storyteller is one of many hats a good GM wears. I agree that players should not be railroaded for the sake of "plot" but engaging in any ttrpg is an act of collaborative storytelling. I respectfully disagree.
I agree to your disagree.
This anecdote is an example of what neither I, nor anyone I know, means when they say the GM is a storyteller. A GM absolutely *is* a storyteller in the sense that the world they describe conveys a sequence of events, most often indirectly. When you describe two trails of blood leading from the mouth of a cave, one in the form of drips and paw-shaped smears, and another in the form of bloody, booted footprints exiting the cave, you've told a story of a wounded beast fleeing into a cave and the hunter that successfully killed it. That's a story. The GM's world is constructed with a series of stories. The anecdote here is an example of a dictatorial NARRATOR, not a storyteller. *Everyone* at the table is a storyteller.
I am fairly new to running Call of Cthulhu and I am currently running Horror on the orient express. I have already found myself moifying and removing content based on the actions of the invesitgators actions. I have run a few modules now and it irritates me how some modules appear to be written on the assumption that players takes certain actions or have certain skills or abilities. I remember one module flat out saying that the investigators cannot solve the main plot of the story on their own or even figure out a solution on their own, they can only do so under the guidance of a really suspisious npc. My players distrusted the npc and took a course of action that I ruled had a similar effect to one of the predetermined outcomes.
not the easiest scenario/campaign you could have chosen , HotOE is cool but is notorious for being prep heavy, as well as having some scenarios that are inferior to the others. I love it to death, but I would have chosen something a wee bit lighter. Have fun :)
@@griselame yeah, especially given I havent read all the modules yet. I am going to try and read them ahead of time and prep each section based on what my characters do and modify them as needed.
I think exploring a situation where the princess kidnaps a dragon and holds the dragon hostage would be comical 3:55
She's running a smuggling opperation where she kidnaps these dragons and harvests parts off them that they can regrow (or not) like scales, ichor, wing sail membranes, etc, and sells them on the black market.
I think Professor DungeonMaster on DungeonCraft said it best - a DM is not a storyteller. A DM crafts obstacles for the heroes to overcome. That's it. Notice there is no crafting solutions.; solutions are for the players to figure out.
Had this very conversation with my players last night. A player made the comment of how "it depends on how the DM decides the story goes", which went into a long conversation of how I, the DM, only set up the initial events and run the baddies in response to their goals and your actions. You drive the story. Not me. I'm not writing a book here.
Alternatively, a storyteller could be a game master. I am a writer, and a dm. I created my own story for the session. And threw them into the game. You as a writer need to make your story for the campaign flexible. Players can effect the story. And as a dm, if you can you should work your players characters into the games story
In this, your still telling a story, just everyone playing has impact on the story. Thats how roleplay works, its a story told by multiple people.
In my most recent campaign, I mostly planned environments and a few major plot points, then figured the players would run with it, and run they did. Probably the only campaign where I wasn't burned out as the DM by the end because I was planning less but planning smarter.
The worst session I ran involved the characters attempting a difficult rescue of some npcs. The difficulty was way too high for them, and as they struggled more and more to achieve their goal I became impatient and started to take away their agency. I wanted to give them a satisfying resolution and set up the next adventure (ie. to tell the story I had already written) so I rushed it and had the npcs rescue themselves. I was not prepared for the characters to fail and so I snatched the whole fun of the adventure from them. The story demanded the npcs be freed, and I didn't care who did it! This was so frustrating for the players that some wanted to quit the multi-year long campaign because of it. I learned my lesson that night.
"Storyteller" in the context of rpg is a person that tells the story created by the group together according to the chosen rules of the system. Also the name of GM in WoD i believe.
I feel about the dice the same you feel about the DM tho. Stupid dice stealing my agency instead of someone making an informed decision that will guide the story in an interesting direction. I no longer play D&D because the "gamy" element makes me sleep - I want to get the combat/challenge/etc over with and continue >telling< the story, not fight against random dice rolls. Hence if I DO play I use the most gimmicked builds imaginable to get over everything mechanical faster.
I run d&d a lot cause it makes people liking fights/mechanics happy and I could use mats/minis instead of trying to wrap my head around it and kinda use this time to think what's next while the boring stuff happens on board.
"GMs are not Storytellers"
Vampire the Masquerade disagrees.
Wait a second... The PRINCESS kidnaps the DRAGON?!? That's good... I gotta steal that...
I agree. Running my first campaign now and I wanted to tell a story, but I realized I have to run a game. I wasn't trully making things difficult to the point that death was a real thing. I was too involved with telling a story instead of playing the game. Now it's different, I strive to run a good game. I just know what the plot is, the players have to decide how to go through it.
A GM is a storyteller in a similar way to a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book. You have the scenes, but the players choose how they resolve and where to go from there.
Question, how do you avoid being a storyteller when you are running a module which effectively is a pre-ordained narrative? Yes, players interact with the storyline but there is a meta plot which the players are following, especially in organized gameplay.
It's best to avoid heavily railroaded adventures, if you can. If you are being paid to run them, fair enough I guess.
The problem with these kinds of discussions is that the term "storyteller" is a very fraught term, and it means very different things to very different people. There are many ways in which a GM should NOT be a traditional storyteller. But there are a lot of ways in which storytelling skills are absolutely essential to being a good GM. It's kind of a false binary, but the binary endpoints are more theoretical than real.
There's 2 rival false agendas at play here.
1. Some GMs have a clear story in mind and take agency away from the players, though not always deliberately. So when the players decide to goof off and go in the opposite direction from the story direction, the GM tries to put the players back on the rails. This leads to player frustration.
2. A growing number of GMs want their games to be like Critical Role / Dimension 20 / insert your favourite live play here. They think they can MAKE a story happen like CR C1 or C2. But of course, the PC choices and the dice rolls influence the outcome. But it must be hard to be Luke when more and more players want a live play type experience and expect the GM to create it, when he clearly doesn't want the players to have fun in that way
Storyteller =/= railroader
But you've been over this topic numerous times. It boils down to semantics. I consider myself a storyteller but I make sure that my players have full agency and that everything they do affects the story. The world is a living place with lots of things going on, I decide what that is and the players decide where to go and how they affect everything. As you said, a collaboration.
As a Forever DM, especially one that does a lot of homebrewing, I strongly disagree. In order to create a setting that the players can get immersed in when they're playing, a certain amount of history is required, and that history must be consistent so that it will hold up under the more nitpicky players scrutiny, lest they stop the campaign every 5 seconds to say "but before, you said..." or "Well/Um, actually..."
I've never been good at remembering history that I've created. That's definitely a flaw for me as a GM.
That said, if you've ever studied history, it's full of plot holes. The stories that are passed down are often biased one way or the other, people will recall events differently, and people tend to create myths surrounding certain people or places for political and social reasons. One of my favourite quotes about history is that "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. " - L.P. Hartley
History is messy. If your players think that the history that they received is always a perfect representation of the reality of that time, they're naive. 😀
@Nathan Trail
Just write/type it down. Campfire or WorldAnvil are best since they were made for that, but anormal word document (or an equivalent) works just as well.
Broad strokes, I agree. Stories are the results of how the players interact with the game world. I think that a game systems should be as transparent to that interaction as possible. While dice rolls are representative of some randomness they should not end up being determinant. Fun should be the point. Bad luck is fine in moderation, but luck should not be the the reason a party is wiped. The GM sometimes needs to tip the scales in the favor of fun and continued adventure.
TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling. The players drive the story. If the players aren't driving the story something is wrong. Note I am saying this as a GM. If you want to create an amazing story experience then work with your players to find out what makes them tick. That's how you get a story driven game.
My favorite thing as the DM is setting a chance for something (ie. Who the bbeg attacks or whether a minion runs away, etc) and letting fate (dice) decide the outcome.
I disagree with the premise. The DM is one of 3 story tellers. There are 3 story tellers in a TTRPG like D&D. 1. The Dungeon Master. 2. The players. 3. The Dice. Storytelling does NOT equal Rail Roading. In fact my players have outright said they hate west march style TTRPG playstyle with no main story. My players WANT an epic narrative to follow. I am the story teller. I tell them WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHY the story is happening. The players choices tell HOW the story happens and the Dice also tell HOW by adding an element of random chance. My group hates feeling completely directionless in an open world. We all agree to participate in the DMs story.
So my stance on this as a GM is a GM is a Storyteller, they create the story of world and everything in it. However the players are also storytellers, the create and control the story of their characters. It is a cooperative storytelling game.
This is how I GM for my groups and this is what my players come to expect and out of it we've created some really cool and funny sessions. We work together and get really cool concepts for characters. I also ask them for (vague) input on what they as a player want for their character to go towards both mechanically and story wise and make sure to incorporate this.
All GM and players are storytellers in this game, but not in the traditional sense and I think the word storyteller is what leads to so many issues.
Interesting POV... I always thougt of me as the one "telling" the story... just not the one "writing" it, not the one "deciding" how it develops...
But i really like the idea that i in fact am not "the one" telling the story, but one of "those" telling it.
But thats the power of language. I will definately go with **"we tell this story together!"** instead of *"i'll tell the story you write."*
Thanks for this realization!
I always say that rpgs are improvised theatre plays with a referee that has certain control over the story that is collectively told, but neither a God, nor someone who sits down kids and reads them a story before bed. Yes, as a DM you have prepared a story based on the background of the players choosen characters, and the setting, and the lore of the world where's happening. But that's it. If something alters that reality, your responsability is to go with the flow and not push towards what you had prepared. If all of this is clear, the DM can be a storyteller. But their not (I'm not in my case) the ONLY storyteller in the table.
Darn princesses always kidnapping dragons.
Some of us use the "Storyteller" name not because we're frustrated writers looking to narrate our novels, some of us do it because in White Wolf's World or Darkness and Chronicles of Darkness the GM is called the Storyteller.
And they are called that in those games because they are a storyteller. Everyone at the table is. Especially the GM. Bad railroading by GMs will always exist, but that doesn't make GMs not storytellers.
YASSSSS! Thank you. We are "Story Facilitators" not "Story Tellers." When my players ask me how they're supposed to solve something I look at them and shrug and say "I don't know. I create problems, not solutions." The most fun in the game is when the players overcome things that I'm thinking "I have no idea how they're going to solve this problem" because they ALWAYS end up finding a way.
Yeah, problem creator and story facilitator. I like both of this titles.
As a "Story Facilitator" though, sometimes you get players who get stuck and really can't think of a solution, or can only think of the worst possible one. In those situations, sometimes it's better for the DM to just take over. They should offer the reins to the players, but if no one wants to drive the story, it's the DM's job to lead them.
I tried to run a Murder Mystery adventure once and the only thing the players could think of was to round up all the suspects at sword point, force them into a room, and try to intimidate each and every one to get a confession. I had to have an NPC tell the players to try searching their rooms and basically point out every clue to them and contradiction in the stories that the suspects gave. It doesn't help that the players refuse to take notes during the session for some reason, so they cannot remember anything that isn't happening to them right now.
@@avengingblowfish9653 sounds like a party that would fit better in undermountain than a murder mystery. Not every player/dm is a good match. Not every group/dm is a good match. It entirely depends on the type of game everyone wants to play. Every play style is valid, as long as everyone involved is on board.
Not saying that you do this, but I’ve also found that a lot of DMs worry about silence at the table. Sometimes giving people space to think is helpful. As is the phrase “are you sure you want to do that?” When someone is about to jump into an instadeath situation without realizing it. And of course, sometimes it just takes stopping the game for a second and explaining that not everything can be solved with threats to villagers. Hint at what Sherlock does, or Matlock if you’re old enough to know what that was. Some people do get hung up when put on the spot. There is nothing wrong with player guidance in those moments.
I have a whole stack of official D&D adventures that have the players captured at some point during the module, and these are essential parts of the adventures. These adventures never run well when I have run them, and now I just don't.
Some are fixable, like Curse of the Azure Bonds, where I have the ambush, capture and memory wipe happen off-screen unbeknownst to the players, while the module expects you to play out the combat.
Stealing player agency is bad. Even when TSR tells you to do it.
Thumbs up for "Game Masters" in the title ☺
P.s.: imho GMs are storytellers, but only in the broadest sense.
One of the best designed campaigns I saw after the 5e playtest came out was Murder in Baldur's Gate and it had this in spades. The scenarios it gave worked perfectly well if the players refused to interact with them at all and just went to do their own things.
Depending on the game system, the GM or DM is sometimes called the "Storyteller". In Firefly, the GM is called the Audience Member. It's written in the perspective that the GM is watching a play from the audience's seats. So while "storyteller" isn't always accurate, it's not necessarily the fault of the GM calling themselves that. Sometimes it is, which is fair.
Well put. If anything players have more control of the story than the dm does. The only "story" the dm should prepare is the one that happens if the PCs never intervene.
If I could like this video more than once I would! The fun of being a GM for me is creating the world, NPCs,and situations. Then watching the story unfold in front of me as a collaborative experience. The players are living THEIR STORY in the world I’ve created for them. I think that is the beauty of these games. Well said.
My personal perspective on what a DM's job is is basically to be a third person narrator, not the writer, and there's an important distinction there.
Your job is to narrate the world around the characters and how their actions effect it, but not actually control the main characters (well, except normally the main antagonists).
If you play the white wolf system "Vampire the Masquerade or others" all of their books refer to the Game Master as the Story Teller, so that could be where part of the term come from.
One term I heard some where and really liked was "Lead Narrator"
While the story comes from everyone, if anything the players are 'more so' the story tellers than the DM.
As I DM i consider it my responsibility to set up the world, set up the inciting event(s), and then to provide reasonable rational reactions to the players actions.
Here's the seen, here's the NPCs, this is where you're at and what you know, now what do you do? Oh you walked outside? Okay because you did that you now see xyz, what do you do next?
It's important for everyone to remember, The DM is a player also.
Shouldn't the DM figure out how the scenario would resolve without player intervention, then allow the players to change the outcome (I would assume for the better).
Unless the players are murder hobos ...
Pedantic nitpick: In World of Darkness, the GM is literally called the Storyteller by the rules. Regardless, as a GM of 20 years now I agree with everything you said here. :)
This may well be the most helpful and meaningful observation or piece of advice I have heard from you. Not that I understood it the way you explain it (until now...) The highest compliment I have ever felt I received as a DM was one player who had been playing for a good amount of time, referring to the town they were "working out of," that he thought he could walk up to any door and and knock. I would be able to tell him who was there and what was going on. The truth was not every one but a good number of them I did. I didn't know how the players would effect the townsfolk but I did know what they were doing without influence of the players. It was their job to figure out how they fit in to all of it. Listening to this, now I understand. I am theater manager, prop master, I'm responsible for lighting and stage construction, I may have something to say about the plot but the script is not mine and the players are their own directors.
Hard disagree. The problem is, it's not the just the GM. The GM AND Players are story tellers. When both groups get to add and create a story, then a good campaign occurs.
exactly. create. not tell. the actions of the GM, the Players and the rnd of the dice create a story. it isn't told.
For what I understood from the Video it is just said that the gm is not an exposition tool and the story is driven by the players and described by the GM. The GM is who puts the World and the players move the Story.
Isn't that basically what he said in the last 2 minutes?
Watch the full video. He says this at the end...
Medium warm semantic take
U right tho
All I do as a storyteller is create the story in the background, the story behind the players story, the thoughts and results of their actions, how the bbeg reacts in a realistic way, how the world changes because my players are in it. At most, and entirely because my players are mostly new and want more combat tone, I come up with situations for them to go and combat or negotiate, but other than designing the world and deciding how NPCs act and react, I do as little as possible.
I have solutions to problems that my characters can discover (or not), and those exist solely to give them a way out, but if they go another way, I only have them roll to make it make sense (there was a mineshaft incident once). I give it more and more rewarding to come up with impossible situations that I can't find a way out of, because then I have the fun of watching my players find the way out that I didn't think of. In this way, they actually make me a smarter person and a better DM.
Glad to hear that I'm on the right track.
This took a hard turn from being “DM’s aren’t storytellers” into “DM’s should let my sponsor be the storyteller for them.” Wow.
That is NOT what a Storyteller does. That is pure railroading. It is the Storyteller's job to facilitate a cooperative story between them and the players. Go read Vampire the Masquerade or any of its sister games or editions and READ what the job of a Storyteller is. Even though they call them different things also read Theatrix and Ars Magica.
Chiming in to parrot the thought that situations should not be given concrete outcomes. Best adventures I've ran ended with the party doing all the creative work and finding solutions I'd have never considered:
Planting a chemical bomb inside the soon-to-be-reanimated corpse in the necromancer's lair such that it explodes once animated was the craziest end to a mega-villian finale. Not a single player was present for the final encounter, just a puff of smoke in a tower, and the village barkers announcing the death a couple days later.
I'm not far into the video, but I'm currently looking for a game setting to make a fun April fool's one shot, and you just mentioned the ship setting in the one shot you participated in and now I've got the inspiration I needed. Many thanks, will resume watching the video now.
I only ever have a guideline of what I would 'like' to have happen to progress the game, my players are the ones actually deciding how things turn out
I play with one of those storyteller DMs. Thankfully he continues to improve in that regard, but I agree and hate it when my character's decisions do not matter in a pre-ordained story. Honestly, if this DM had not improved, I probably would have not joined the next game. I did confront him on it though, so communication can help such situations.
The way I’ve always thought of it is: I’m an architect of the building, not the tour guide. But overall, storyteller never bothered me and still doesn’t. It doesn’t inherently deny that it’s a collaborative storytelling game. I’m still telling a story just as much as my players are.
I have a lot of lore and story in my current campaign but I told my players that if they want the lore they’ll have to actually go looking for it. The story itself is more like jumbled plot points that are all interchangeable depending on their location on the map. Plus in our session zero, I told them how they get there is up to them. Basically they have the freedom to do anything, learn anything and progress the story only if they so choose.
This is more like a pet peeve than a hot take. You don't like GM's role being described as storyteller because of the connotation that comes with it, and that's fair. It is important to understand the distinction. There are certainly plenty of horror stories of GMs that take this description in exactly this manner.
Something I still struggle with as a DM... but I'm actively working to counteract these tendencies, and have scrapped several ideas to give power back to the players instead of forcing things to go the way I thought they would.
I feel this misconception tends to happen more in Call of Cthulhu. Players can change some things, but how are they going to alter the course of a story that is determined by entities as powerful and difficult to understand as those featured in these kinds of stories? Even I sometimes think that players feeling like they don't matter is the point of cosmic horror.
Well your fundamental role in CoC is an investigator. You find a mystery and you investigate it. Obviously the main branch that can happen is:
A) the ivestigators solve the mystery
B) The investigators don't solve the mystery.
And you have contingencies for those two things. It sometimes gets railroady mainly because a lot of DMs have this (often subconscious) belief that skill checks don't matter. If you don't solve the mystery they'll just solve it for you, so that the plot continues. The common D&D equivalent is that when the party ranger tries to track the goblins back to their lair but fails, some random NPC comes in with knowledge of how to get there so the PCs can get "back on track" and go to where the DM wants them to be.
I do agree with the points of the video. Nobody wants a DM that has all the story figured out. But I don't see a problem with using the word "storyteller" as long as one recognizes the DM is not the only storyteller in this situation. I also think every game system do has it's weaknesses for different stories. All that said, great video. I just don't agree with the word or even the concept being a problem per se.
I think it's important to mention that the type of DM you need to be really depends on the players. If the players are actively engaged in the story and carrying the plot forward on their own, a good DM should just stand back and let them. However, there are a lot of players who want a railroad from a good storyteller DM. They typically are not comfortable with role playing or taking the initiative in creating their own story and just want to play D&D like a video game with the DM delivering the cut scenes and telling them where to go next.
There is no wrong way to play DnD as long as everyone is having fun.
The only time I regret flubbing a dice roll was a more harsher weather (mainly to protect my pirates) vs their young black dragon with a Tortle Paladin on it's back.
Because the dragon busted the ship from the underside. XP
The other players were fighting the land pirates or shooting onto the deck to burn it down.
GM: "Welcome to my game. I will be your storyteller for this campaign."
Player A: "In other words, a railroader. Got it. Ima out. Bye."
Player B: "Whew, dodged a bullet on that one didn't we."
Player A: "Ya, nothing like a nat 20 Dex check!"
Player B: "Isn't that an Insight check?"
Player A: "Hmmmmmm...."
Every GM needs to hear this.
It's not a myth it's a different philosophy that's gotten very popular in recent years
Saying that Game Masters isn't Storytellers is like saying that an Author that write a choose your own adventure books isn't an Author.
Not giving the players choices is just bad GMing, but even if that players has choices the DM still have to structure the story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Even though there can be different path to get from the beginning to the end and there can be different outcomes, structure is still important.
Just because the players, the dice and the system has an influence on the story don't mean that the DM is a storyteller just that a good DM will let the players be storytellers too.
I am very very fortunate that I have a table that loves my homebrew setting and is very invested in my NPCs and setting and what thematic ideas I put out there, so the storytelling aspect of my DMing does thrive. BUT. I have always recognized that it’s not about me and what I want and I never step in the toes of my players desires. I give them a plot, as well as deviating side mission, and content that’s very centered on their characters, and let them take the ball.
world of darkness: should we tell him?
The GM should tell YOUR story not theirs if they claim story telling.. meaning i want to give someone the fantasy they are asking for. NOT the story i write. What makes a story is not knowing what comes next. which is the PLAYERS and the ROLLS. The GM is just the "foundation of the house not the details. you design what it is on the insides." is what i tell my players
Some GMs may refer to themselves as "storytellers" if they got their start in World of Darkness games where the name for the GM is literally "Storyteller". So it may just be a hold over habit from that system.
And it was a nice system in my opinion.
I think this video gets into semantics, which is ok just I feel deep down a DM can still look at their role as a storyteller. It's just that the player should also be an active storyteller.
Regardless is such an important lesson that many DMs need to hear.
I agree with points of this issue, but I feel it's important we describe an RPG as a Gamemaster crafting a narrative, while the players interact with said narrative. At that point, *collectively*, the table is telling a story.
I'm running a campaing with my friends, and they were all new to d&d.
I basically not only have to make the plothooks, but also all the others stuff like thinking at how they could solve something, I was even thinking about what the character should have done considering their background that (as they were new) I co-writed, but everything changed the last session.
My players matured, they've studied the rules, they've finally totally fallen in love with the game AND they are understanding their character, they're not anymore ankward at acting and thinking like their character at point that I don't know anymore what they might do!
I loved the feelings, but after that session, i was scared, as I wouldn't be able anymore to offer the right piece of story, but then, a second before findinding this video, I tough "wait, I don't have to create anything, I Just have to offer situations, and my player will solve It the way they're character would!"
A lesson I learned long ago. I do run a linear game, which is not what Luke is talking about. However, a particular section of it had to go a certain way or else it wouldn't work, so to speak. I realized it was no longer linear and became a railroad. Certain events must happen. The PCs must do this. I had to get rid of it, and I did. Linear campaigns are fine, but the players must do it their way. The players decide how they resolve whatever the plot point is. I've run Dragonheist twice. The first group joined Force Grey willingly and wholeheartedly and had the Good Guys Win ending. The Zehntarim while not the Villain still ended up as their enemies. They eventually fought and killed Yaggra. In the second group, a player joined the Zhentarim (who were not the Villain). Davil became a sort of father figure to him. Yaggra became his girlfriend. The Zhentarim became defacto allies to the party. As the party as a whole did join Force Grey they had the Good Guys win ending too, but this time with Zhentarim support and while they didn't get the Vault money were enriched by other means such as taking over House Gralhund.
To be fair, I refer to myself as a storyteller, but in a broader sense of the term. The only parts of the story I tell are "as we begin, x thing is happening, and your character is affected in y way." And then how the world around them reacts and changes based on their actions and choices, or lack thereof.
So I guess you're right, I'm more of a narrator, rather than a storyteller... my bad lol
The GM provides the plot, the story is what emerges from playing the game.
Oooh I can think of a list of DMs I’ve met that I could send this video to. That’s one of the biggest truths we should tell most DMs. But, I wonder how this works with premade adventures…
Exactly what I was going to comment. This is a great advice for homebrew campaigns, but I wonder how well that translates into a premade adventure.
A good GM can often adapt the story progression to respond to the players actions, but that might come at the expense of cohesion.
I refer to TTRPGs often as collaborative storytelling games exactly because of that three-party description you gave of GM + Players + Rules. I am *a* storyteller as the GM, and my players are storytellers. And the dice/rules are helping. But the fact that it's a collaboration and the fact that I foreground player agency and the impact of characters' actions doesn't mean I'm *not* a storyteller.
Question for you, good sir! What if the one-shot session is advertised in the manner that you derise. In other words, going in, the players KNOW that this is a highly-railroaded adventure. I run a convention one-shot where 4-6 players choose from about 20 premade characters in a real-world/current-day scenario. All the characters are involved in a tragic accident (most are passengers on a bus) and it's basically a shared near-death experience. As they progress through, each character watches scenes in their own life - either an historical scene, something happening currently, or something in the future (much like Dicken's Christmas Carol) (Some of the scenes allow interaction with NPCs, so it's not 100% "cut-scene" driven.) The role-play encourages the players to interact with each other to talk about their lives and experiences, and to discover how each of them is somehow connected to the others. This all culminates at the end when the player decides the character's fate, and we discuss why they made their decision. I've run this several times over the years and with one exception, the players all had a great experience.
Perhaps it's not your cup of tea, and I totally respect it. For my D&D campaigns, it is as you prescribe - a collaboration between me and the players to develop a shared narrative. But, I think, if the players know up front that this doesn't fit the "standard" rpg model, it's not as bad as you describe. Not only that, I'd never run a railroad-style adventure in anything other than a one-shot.
I think a one-shot is a lot more geared towards being railroaded because of the time constraints. So really going in, most people expect a lot less freedom than you'd get in an ongoing campaign.
I was expecting a bunch of comments "Umm Actually in World of Darkness Games like Vampire and Wereolf the GM is literally called a story teller..."
mm i wanna say here as a DM i love story telling and i love to be a story teller and it helps a lot actually to build good DnD sessions what u have said is correct about player agency but as a story teller here i build only the world and stories in it from start and to end (according to what i hope for) but if players have any other idea on how things should work or stuff like that i adjust my story to fit them because as a story teller i trust all my players to be story tellers with me with equal if not more agency more than me
so..storytelling as essence is not really bad i would say..and i am open for discussion for sure ^ ^ sorry if my english isn't good "i am working/talking" right now so i am a bit hasty
World of Darkness games “Am I a joke to you?”
Was in a game like this. After 5 sessions that were still part of the "prelude", driving the group to where they might actually be able to make meaningful decisions that affect the world (or more likely not), I was done. Really was feeling like I was trapped in someone's book, and each time I tried to do something meaningful or make a push to see if my character was even relevant, it was passed over in favor of what was progressing their novel.
Other things I've seen at tables is a player describing their action, and then the GM further describing it almost as if the player didn't. Even things like "your character thinks...this" and "your character believes...that". Thankfully no "your character does...this", as of yet. Granted domination, illusion, and fear effects do exist, and I can roll with that without any loss of agency, but without such effect, my character is mine with which to interpret how they behave, think, act, and feel.
Definitely needs to be a group effort to tell a shared story that progresses (however it does) by chance and by character motivation. From the GM perspective, yes - set the stage, describe the world and how it reacts, and otherwise be the senses for the PCs; but no - don't force a narrative that the group hasn't created through play. Events, triggers, situations, scenarios, scenes, and so on, are important tools to use.
Some players might want to turn off their brains and ride the rails, while others want to get full immersion and escape into the fantasy under their own power. GMs and Players should be at the table that meets their collective expectations.
I like to run sandbox campaigns where events culminate into a larger picture. In other words, I let the players choose the adventures they want to explore through side quests with a few hidden plot hooks here or there. This makes a lot of sessions very self-contained, so it is almost like having a one-shot every session, with the occasional scenario requiring two or three sessions. It is only after a team history has been built up sufficiently when I find ways to connect the dots, and make it look like I had the long game already planned out. The players create the story for me.
Obviously this strategy won't work for every group. It requires very proactive players who love to RP and think independently. If your players are not self-motivated to do the things they want to do, and instead depend on you to provide a story and everything for them, it's not going to work.