Just learned that the authors of this book have a free community for GMs to discuss and improve their craft! Could be a good resource if you plan to try out these techniques at your own table: gamemasterlaboratory.com
So I'm really glad that helps you, but from where I'm sitting as a GM, this doesn't really save any significant prep time. I've also been running games over 3 decades... what this objective achieves is it gives you a start point the characters/players have some kind of vested interest in. You still need to do all your plot and encounter building around all of that... so this saves you maybe 2 min to decide what the impetus for the adventure is, and in some cases it may not even save that if you have to pull teeth to get players on board with this kind of format. What I've done in my game system is have players make what I call personal stakes, which are things the players care about and have goals around. It could be anything, and the GM is able to use that as impetus or not as they prefer when designing adventures. Where this matters is that players gain mechanical benefits and detractions when their personal stakes become involved so they have a vested interest in making sure and justifying their behaviors about the things they care about. This provides all the utility but doesn't force the GM to revolve the plot around the PCs necessarily, which can end up being just as boring/repetitive/immersion breaking as never doing that. The key here, I think as a game system designer and decades of GMing experience is to have a balance between the two where the PCs are not always the most important thing going on, and times when they are. This makes for feelings of achievement and motive to really appeal to any kind of player and it's less predictable and more believable regarding plot structure. There are both internal and external motivations to work with and you can push or let the PCs pursue as needed for the pacing of the table. PC's currently in a choice quagmire? Drop a bombshell on them that forces them to react... PCs currently wanting to pursue a specific goal? Give them reactions to what happens. No two tables are going to be exactly alike in wants/needs/desires and pacing needs can change mid session, let alone week to week or table to table. I would say what you're saying isn't at all "BETTER" but it's instead another tool you should have in your box. I do get why this can "feel" liberating at first by not having the tool for so long, and now you want to use it all the time, but the key for a master craftsman is to use the right tool for the right job, and that means sometimes using this format you are excited about GD, and also bringing in more structured events. Either way I feel like what's important here isn't what area you start with or end up at, so long as you get those organic moments of fun, and if you're any good as a GM and your players are at all creative those moments are going to come up more often than not anyway. I've been doing this for decades and I can say for certain it doesn't matter what you prep or didn't prep, or how, but there's going to be that one NPC the players latch onto that was not even in your notes a little, and there's going to be a cool moment where PCs massively succeed or fail in spectacular, status quo altering ways, and none of that matters based on what you started with, player goals or a big bad. Those things just happen, and they are the "fun" game part of the game, and that's what is really important. I would say GMs will again, be better equipped if they use both methods in tandem. Not everything should always be about the players, but some things should, and allowing that to happen at the table and put some thought into how is just something I'd recommend as normal prep. If you, as a GM, need to figure out what the motivations of all the NPCs are, shouldn't you also understand the needs and motivations of the players are to build that cooperative story around? Seems to me like that's the better approach, do both, not one or the other.
That's one of the reason I always push for sandbox play. No predetermined story, adventure book or what have you. Any other way of playing hinder the one and only quality ttrpgs have over all other media : the combination of freedom and creativity. This is also why taking control of a PC as a DM regardless of how it's done is a big nono but that the other way around is ok if not over used. (because the first stops playing while the other just temporarily lose some of it's near omni potency) Also...It's way easier for players to be invested in what they wanna do then what you want them to do. It's also more respectful of the cooperative nature of the game and the players by actually letting them have some of the responsibilities. Who would have guessed that a game meant to put the spotlight on a group would run more smoothly by letting said group decide what they want to do ? Almost sounds like taking all the responsibilities and imposing near everything on everyone else on what is supposed to be a cooperative effort is a toxic practice... Who would have guessed eh ? No seriously I am more pissed at every single ttrpgs group who think the dm decides everything and thus can do whatever the fuck they want. Glad you had such an easy time realizing and accepting you were doing it wrong. That's no small feat most people can't admit it to themselves let alone broadcast it.
Most of my players are people I know from work, so I'm giggling a little at the idea of sitting them down and saying "OK, I want each of you to set goals for your characters. Ideally they should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Every couple of months we'll check in to see how you're tracking on your goals and whether they need to be adjusted." I suspect they would burn me at the stake. "Helen. I noticed that Xyrelle is only tracking at a 0.5 on her 'avenge my parents' OKR. What can we do to bring this up to a 0.7?"
Interestingly, I learned SMART from my therapist - but I'm probably not going to sit him down for a TTRPG session anyway, so it's not going to get as awkward ;D
@@connorkennedy1794 In the 1979 AD&D dungeon masters guide there's a cartoon of a group of wizards and warriors sitting around a table rolling dice with the caption "It's a great new fantasy role-playing game. We pretend we're workers and students in and industrialized and technological society."
@@carlfishy I own a module with a reference like that, too. I think it was What Ho! Frog Demons! Which has a battlefield haunted by ghostly generals playing war games like D&D with dice.
The more I delve into the world of DnD I realize just how different my first campaign was. This is basically how we played. The Gm presented us a world and just said "What do we want to do?" So we ended up building a castle for us and creating our own crime syndicate. There were all kinds of plots surrounding the creation of the crime syndicate and it was awesome. But I do give props that our gm was incredible at improvising and coming up with stuff on the spot. I must say I'm really glad my first game was so unorthodox.
For me it's weird, as a GM I prefer sandboxes and as a player, I prefer more story. I try to give my players as much free reign as possible. I try to steer them towards interesting stuff, but if you wanna go fishing for 3 hours, that's cool, too.
Mine were a lot like that too, despite my teenage GM failings. I didn't encounter a proper railroad adventure until years after I started GMing. I had a level 1 dungeon crawl for D&D, then some VtM "by night" adventures, which are NPCs relationships web urban sandboxes. Around the time I tried the more railroady adventures (and didn't like them much) I also discovered the Alexandrian. Player-driven campaigns are so much more fun.
This is similar to something Brennan once said. "Railroad vs player agency is a false dichotomy. A good campaign is a railroad... made of rails and spikes that your players give you. "
@@mkklassicmk3895 which is fine if the players are the one deciding the direction the track is being laid in. I honestly prefer to play and DM stuff I've prepared for than stuff improvised at random because the latter just won't have the same confidence or thought put into it.
@@mkklassicmk3895 I think it matters more about how far ahead the track is set without the potential for deviation than if there's a track or not. I mentioned in an earier comment that my players decided on like 15 campaign goals (3 each) when doing their character back stories. So some major destinations on the journey of my campaign are known to me and I can start planning elements of them. The track between them all is not set though. I like to have the track laid ahead up a certain distance because I want to have nice maps, minis prepared for the fights, some actual NPCs with something behind them. Why we're here though is all because of players wanting to be here, and I see it as my role as the DM to make where they want to go interesting to get to and interesting when they get there. Based on how what they decide up to where my prep ends will inform me on how to continue my prep, should it veer towards one thing or another. I just don't like how Rail Roading as a term gets thrown around for not having every single session be an Improvised jumble of half thought out ideas as if that's going to be better.
The good is reactive evil is proactive line is something that was ingrained in me when I was younger, to the point that even when I ran an evil game I was like oh you guys are the driving force now not me and it was super fun. I eventually learned to include some of that stuff in my "regular" games too, And I love that you mentioned that too 🖤
When I ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, all villains were in play, and all of them were run by players. Considered one of my best games I ever ran because of how... reactive and proactive the Villains were. Tells me that great villains are both reactive and proactive. Downside to this side of play is... sometimes no good deed goes unpunished.
This trope comes from fantasy writers being fundamentally scared to challenge the status quo of society. Voldemort is threatening to start a wizard supremacist society, so Harry Potter defeats him and returns the world to a still wizard supremacist society, but slightly better. Superhero stories are also notoriously bad with this. The villain says that society is bad, and we should change it. The hero says no actually, let's keep society the way it is. And then the villain kills a bunch of innocent people, so now we can side with the hero to defeat the villain and return society to where it was. Dystopian stories are great examples of stories where the heroes aren't afraid to challenge the status quo. I'm currently binging The Boys, and it's actually pretty great. It's a twist on superhero stories, where the superheroes are extremely corrupt and dangerous, and the main characters basically take on the roles of the "villains" to defeat the superhero corporation. It's essentially an "evil campaign," but where the protagonists aren't actually evil, they just occupy the roles that want to change the world and kill the superheroes.
i am a new dm and i can see this dynamic playing out in my own game. my players are chaotic and destructive and did away with heroism very quick. they have their own motivations and its making planning consequences really interesting. Its so fun.
5:58 Player Character Goals: [1] Each player has multiple goals [2] Short, mid-, long term [3] Obviously measurable [4] Consequences of Failure [5] Should be Fun 7:39 Framework Player-goal centric Heirarchy (Factions) No faction matters unless it intersects player goals 10:05 Encounter Design Checklist: [1] Review Player goal [2] Identify which faction(s) have overlap for [3] ... and against [4] Location [5] Expected Conflicts [6] Choose rewards [7] Collect Materials
I have a remark that the first point in "7:39 Framework" does not emphasise *shaping the campaign around player goals* , but it emphasises that shaping the campaign around player goals *doesn't mean the PCs are the only ones with objectives* . So instead of "Player-goal centric" I'd put somehow like "NPCs' and factions' objectives".
This is really good advice to long-form campaigns! But for anyone interested in episodic campaigns or one shots, where PCs have less agency over their goals, consider giving your hero One Dramatic Question about their identity. Questions like “Will the hero’s faith in the aristocracy survive once they venture beyond the palace walls?” “Will the hero embrace or reject their complicated family legacy?” “Will the hero let go of their feelings of guilt and open their heart to a found family?” "Will the hero stop being a self-interested hustler and help out the plucky rebels?" are some common, tropey examples. Using The One Dramatic Question gives you the following benefits: -It is easy to demonstrate your character's answer to their One Dramatic Question changing over time, creating dynamic character arcs emergently. -It is an effective roleplay lens, encouraging you to think about how you can "eek out" ways of demonstrating your PC's answer to their One Dramatic Question in various generic scenes without specifically needing to plan a scene about answering your One Dramatic Question. -It is easy for other players to understand and pick up on. Deep psychological conflicts can be satisfying in books and films, but can be hard to roleplay in a way that other players can clock and meaningfully respond to. However, One Dramatic Question makes the most interesting part of your character extremely obvious and easy for other players to meaningfully interact with. -Dramatic Questions are... well, dramatic. WILL the hero turn against the monarchy after seeing the plight of the commoner? WILL the hero take up the name of their evil father? WILL the hero break down and embrace their party members after a ferocious battle? WILL the hero sell out the resistance for a massive reward? The answer is *usually* that the PC will choose the heroic option, but the uncertainty as to what circumstances will prompt/inform their dramatic choice, alongside the vague possibility that they might *not* make the heroic choice is compelling drama.
Super interesting mechanic! It can feel unsatisfying making all these goals for a oneshot character, knowing that it's extremely unlikely that you'll ever see them come to fruition. This is a cool fix for that 🥰
@@pand1024 Kind of roundabout answer, but it's essentially a different way of thinking about the normal "Your character needs a goal!" and "You character needs to have wants vs. needs" advice you hear about writing books and screenplays. The TH-camr LocalScriptMan talks about it a lot, but it's more from a screenwriting perspective than a ttRPG one. Basically, his thesis is that stories are a vehicle for demonstrating character... the ways characters evolve, the ways they refuse to evolve, what makes them change their mind about something important, what makes them dig in harder... And that by focusing on goals, wants, needs, backstory, etc; you're kind of missing the forest for the trees when it comes to making a compelling character. What you *really* want is give your character A Big Dramatic Question about who they are, and then write scenes that challenge and inform their answer to that question, so at the end when they make The Biggest Most Dramatic Decision They Can Make, showing the climax of their journey, the audience understands why their ultimate decision is so meaningful. This is a vast oversimplification, but I highly recommend you check out his channel. I just like it for ttRPGs because it helps me remember what the core of the character is really about, it makes it easy for me to communicate to my GM what kind of scenes would help explore this core conflict, and because it seems to be approachable for other players.
Yesssssss! That is exactly why people always say "D&D doesn't feel like when we were 13-14yo anymore!", and I'm convinced it's not just notalgia but because of big adventure modules setting the standard to reactive gaming for the players. Several of the games I played in the 90s, the DM invented a reason why we were together, put us in a small town and ask "So what do you guys want to do?". We rolled STR, then DEX, then CON, etc., not even choosing which goes where. Once, I rolled very bad stats! I played a wizard anyway. I died at level 1 (!), and I rolled another dude, but because we had so much fun with my bad wizard for a couple of sessions, they became the Company of the Dead Wizard. This was a very awesome and satisfying game.
@@thomgizziz Where did I applied this to all people? I heard people state that it doesnt feel like before, and I put an hypothèse here. I am NOT assuming this is general feeling for all people on the planet...
we still do it that way... If I want pre-defined adventures, I either play classic The Dark Eye or computer games :D I´d guess I haven´t played more than maybe 5 or 6 "bought" adventures in my entire 30 years of TTRPGs and those were at the very beginning with Shadowrun 2.01. I have used one once myself to get a hang on the GM thing.
While this seems like a fabulous idea, the hard part about it is *getting the players to be proactive.* I tried to get goals early on, and aside from one player's vengeance plot, everyone mostly abdicated goals to me anyway. Long-term or undefined goals. And I can't really blame them too harshly. I've been on the other side of it. I just wanted to play my lizardman fisher lad and bonk things. He had no long term goals, and his short term was mostly about protecting his half-brother. There wasn't enough world or plot to hook into to make those variable-term goals. It was difficult to dredge up anything interesting without adopting a random roll table for additional context. Admittedly, that did make some "interesting" hooks, but it felt really forced.
Hey there! I agree, and with systems that aren’t already set up to encourage this kind of proactive mindset (like Blades in the Dark, Fate, Masks…), it’s much easier to work it into the session zero. And your exact concern is in the book! Totally worth a read. 😁
That is exactly my problem. When I try to get players to think beyond “I want to be all-powerful” I get crickets. ME: “But WHY does your sorcerer want to be all-powerful, and what does that even mean? What is his motivation?” PLAYER: “What? I don’t know…he just wants to. Why does he need a reason?” This book sounds great for players who are into story and RP. But some groups, like mine, just don’t get story. It’s a game to them, not a story-telling vehicle.
@@paulpostel8110 even in the context of it just being a game there are loads of player goals just within the bounds of accruing power that could be fun, like becoming a lich, gaining powerful allies, defeating a specific foe, or owning a castle. ultimately though if they just wanna hit things with a stick then level up, so be it. hit with stick fun.
I hear this a lot from other DMs and I definitely agree that this approach only works if your players are willing to put some thought and work into setting their own goals. You can't play a proactive character without being a proactive player. If you really want to run a game like this, it has to start with a bit of tough love open communication 😅 I don't think players realize how demanding they're being of their DM until you sit them down and spell it out for them. Then, if they agree to be part of the game, they know what is expected of them.
I’m a first-time DM but a long-time novelist who knew this in theory, but have been struggling to put it into practice. I keep putting plot hooks in front of them related to their goals, but haven’t been able to get them to really DO anything. Last session, I gave them a bulletin board and told them to try to put together all the information about the world that they know so far, and come up with a game plan. They gave me a whole list of goals and action items they want to do next session, and have said that they’re going to keep using it throughout the campaign as a communal notes section. It’s made prepping SO much easier!!
This is great advice, with one caveat: I was doing many of these things before I ended my campaign in frustration. Why? Because the players strongly resisted proactivity. It was like pulling teeth to get them to say what they wanted to do next, much less compose character goals. "Actionable goals - that sounds like what my boss asks me to do at work." Yeah guys, creating goals IS work. Imagine how much harder it is for me to guess what your goals are when you won't tell me, or don't even know. The point of my whining is: This strategy (like almost everything in adventure games) won't work without player buy-in. Players, please help your GMs out in this easy way. You'll all have more fun.
It sounds like you were dealing with "murder-hobos?" It takes some time to get a good crew together. Honestly, it's like forming a good band. Only, there's absolutely no potential of financial gain. Ever. 😅
Yeah this just isn't what DnD players are interested in in my experience. Last time I tried running a game, the players repeatedly signaled they just wanted me to give them a linear plot to follow, everytime I tried asking what they were interested in pursuing. I have seen posts from DnD players that say they have tried other games and come back to DnD because they just want to be reactive without having to engage on a deeper level.
My most memorable campaign was where the players started out with a "classic D&D" style (reactive players). And then one player saw they chose "brewing" as proficiency (AD&D2), and asked me if they could use that to create new beers. I said "yes". Then the campaign changed to where the party created new beers and tried to license them to breweries. Each session was encounters to ingratiate the party to stubborn breweries, to "handle" rivals, to keep their distribution network safe, etc. Instead of getting money from treasures the characters got money from the breweries, which sold their beers.
I remember hearing about a story like this in a Reddit comment years ago and was thinking of it halfway through the video. It may have been your story!
Our current Firefly rpg game a large part of it is us brewing vodka on an abandoned base we found on an asteroid. GM never saw it coming but rolled with it wonderfully.
Such a great example of organic plot generation. The thing is this kind of experience isn't going to attract millions of viewers like on critical role or dimension 20. That's because those experiences are geared towards passive audiences. And yet it's what most people are using is their inspiration for how they play D&D. No wonder no one is asking their players to be proactive.
I think this is an excellent approach to a certain way of running D&D, so long as the group is set on running D&D that way. Players who approach D&D because they want to be the protagonists of a heroic story may love being given the reigns of a table driven by proactive roleplaying and clearer guidelines on how to take part in it. Players who approach D&D because they want to explore the unknown and overcome diegetic challenges may feel less rewarded by overcoming an obstacle when they put it there themselves DMs who approach D&D because they want to enable their friends' epic story may love the relief of proactive roleplaying causing no effort to go to waste and granting the confidence that they're doing what their players want. DMs who approach D&D because they want to engage in worldbuilding, storytelling, and challenge designing may feel underappreciated when their role is relegated to serving as the facilitator of the players' ideas of worldbuilding, storytelling, and challenge designing rather than their own. My theory of these differing approaches is that D&D experiences exist on a spectrum between "D&D is improvising a heroic storytelling experience" and "D&D is playing a game of simulated adventuring". On the "story" side, players are more likely to use framings like "the plot", "the story", "the main characters / protagonists", "character motivations", "the spotlight", "scenes", "narrative milestones", etc. From that perspective, it is highly beneficial to look to theatre, improv, literature, and live performance in general to seek ways to improve. Characters being able to proactively direct the game using their motivations makes sense. Improv isn't about following a script, it's about listening to each other and taking it upon yourself to introduce new ideas. On the "game" side, players are more likely to use framings like "the dungeon", "exploration nodes", "player roles", "resource management", "procedures", "resolution mechanics", "[hex/point/path/city/dungeon] crawl", "random tables", "experience point value", etc. From that perspective, it is highly beneficial to look to board games, video games, and game theory in general to seek ways to improve. Players being able to alter the direction of the game based on what their game token _wants_ might not make sense from this perspective. I would like to see more discussion and clearer distinction around the differences between these approaches to D&D, as I think it would allow for better improvement on both ends. Having a better idea of what is/isn't important to the game based on how you play is what leads to great insights like the ones Ginny shares here for "story" games.
I appreciate the way you're framing this concept. It reminds me of several tables I've sat at. Worst-case scenarios: half your players are "story" oriented and half are "game" oriented OR your GM leans one way and the players lean the other way.
Great take on this matter! I was about to write the same thing in response to Ginny seeing "no downsides" to the approach specified in the video. I'd ask, what about *DM* agency? If the only stories that matter were the ones told by the players, where's the fun for the DM? I'm a storyteller and worldbuilder at heart, which made me fall in love with D&D in the first place. I *really* don't mind prepping factions or locations that my players might never meet - I get my kicks from creating a cohesive world with rich lore. That doesn't negate player agency, it just sets certain boundaries for them - which my players really appreciate, I've been told. Without my framework, we would have a party consisting of Farty McJokester, Mary Sue Powerz and Just Some Guy. 😅 The magic happens when we tell the story *together*.
@@samihietanen2605 I am the kind of GM that loves listening to the players, following their lead. I prep very little (or nothing) and improvise heavily. Basically this hobby did not «click» for me until I stepped away from D&D and GMed Blades in the Dark. I love how this hobby supports so many different takes on it. It complicates opinions and tips about GMing though because they always come with the (unspoken) asterix «this is not guaranteed to work for you or your table though»
@@samihietanen2605 I don't see it as an either/or thing. In creating factions, the DM has the agency to set up their story by creating factions with opposing goals and motivations. Then those factions go about pursuing their goals, while the players pursue theirs. This creates the conditions for the story to actually play out at the table, where everyone- DM included- discover what the story is together as they play.
Yeah, the strategy outlined in the video only works-as a sole strategy-with the right players and GM :) I know I'd never have been able to run a game entirely that way, because 90% of the guys I used to game with (I've since moved country and haven't got a new group together) struggled to even give me a motivation for why the character was an adventurer (the worst would always be "I'm adventuring to FiNd MySeLf..."). Or they'll give me a backstory, and then totally forget about it by the end of session 2 (and even ignore stuff that was added in for them) because their characters motivations have already changed and they just haven't noticed. Despite sometimes making my job very difficult, I like my friends too much to try to force them to give me constant goal updates ;)
I remember ages ago, Wizard magazine did a special issue on villains of comics, and there was a whole ass essay on the issues about comics being the same villains act, heroes react thing. It pointed out that it's actually the opposite in most old legends. Gilgamesh wants immortality. Odysseus just wants to get home.Orpheus wants Eurydice to live again. In the oldest tales, heroes were the ones with the goal, and villains were the ones who somehow prevented that goal.
I suppose in that case, “acting” or “reacting” depends on where you start the story. Is Orpheus being active because he pursues Eurydice, or is he being reactive because he is reacting to her death?
@@notthephonz True, but I'd say "acting" and "reacting" in this case means more who has the main motivation for the story. Or maybe "Whose actions drive the story forward" is the "actor" Yeah ,Orpheus is reacting to her death, but her death wasn't some plot by Hades, it's just she stepped on a viper and it bit her. Orpheus is the one who decides to, and undertakes the quest to, bring her back to life. Even in a story where the actions do all start because of an antagonist, like the Labors Of Hercules. It's more about "Herc must accomplish these tasks for his concept of atonement" not "Hera did this to hurt Herc"
It was largely as a result of a different world, where "the norm" was harsh wilderness and struggling to survive. But it's difficult to say "most." Labors of Heracles, the Trojan War, Beowulf, the Ramayana (and Mahabharata), the Tain bo Cualinge, etc. there are just as many high profile ancient stories where the hero is reacting to an outside force that changes the normal living state.
I think that's at least partially because myth tends to be about "How did we get to this point?" which means the world was one way, and someone made an effort to change it to be another way. RPGs often rely on a pre-existing setting, and there's a vested interest in keeping that setting more or less as is (because doing otherwise is making parts of the older material less useful). That's why published adventures often deal with averting changes to the status quo, or at least minimizing those changes and making them go your way.
A simple way to make a Proactive GM-Reactive Player game a little more even is: Resources! If the party has rations and water, that can become an issue. If they have a vehicle, that can become damaged! If they have items which are useful to them, they can break as well, or become lost or stolen! This allows you to be proactive as a DM, but in a way that genuinely receives a reaction from your players. It’s been cool so far in my sailing Campaign
If you have players who enjoy resource management, it is good idea. Although after long day of running around managing your own IRL stuff, some might want to skip this part.
I think that would only work in certain types of campaigns. If I'm playing something that has a heroic style I don't want to be micromanaging stuff. It's like counting ammo in an action movie, you don't because it kills the mood.
yeah, i love this kind of thing as its the nitty gritty that gives me stakes to work with and concequences to my actions. My players hate the idea of even tracking their inventory or figuring out how to carry a heavy thing because it doesnt sound like fun
I just kinda chuckled to myself as one I am old enough to have played chainmail, I had the red and blue book, owned a set of blue exploding dice filled in with white crayone and know what THACO means. When I finally got into DMing I started with warhammer fantasy where there was no reason to or not to do anything except for selfish reasons for the player characters. sometimes my players were the hero, sometime the villain and sometimes they were neither. It was up to me to keep a living world going and not force the players down a certain path. it is weird how far we have come in gaming and how much has been forgotten. I have passed the GM mantle on to my daughter and told her to all about this channel. I kibitz with her to help her keep her session enjoyable. Thank you for this resource, keep dem dice rolling and remember "If stupidity got you into this situation maybe stupidity can get you out."
"Redistributing the creative load" I think is a great way to encapsulate this approach. I burnt out more than once running campaigns, and I subscribe to a "less is more" approach when it comes to game prep. Most recently, I've been running a World of Darkness game where my PCs keep finding these news articles that are actually summaries of one shots I've run over the last 20 years. Anytime they want to "follow up" on these articles, I just imagine what the place looks like 20 years later and run with it. It's super fun because it puts them in the driver's seat as to what leads they want to investigate and I inject the story regardless of what lead they end up following.
You might need to couple it with some mandatory inter-character connections otherwise players will wind up pulling in some different directions (everyone knows the trope of the adventuring party that just all coincidentally shows up at the same tavern, has exactly zero in common or to connect them, but still has to somehow be an adventuring party because that's who the players created). In the RPG Spire, every class has a set of "Bonds" that they start with - a connection to an NPC, and a connection to one other PC. For example the Bound (a rogue-type class) starts with a bond to an individual "member of the downtrodden underclass" in the city that the game is set - an NPC who the player has to give a name, and also name a thing that's most important to that NPC. Additionally they need to have a bond with another PC who rescued them from a dangerous situation, which the player also has to describe. A Knight (actually more of a sword-wielding tavern gang member, but who's legally allowed to carry a sword) starts with a squire NPC who they have to name, and identify whether they're idealistic or cynical about being a knight, and a PC they regularly go drinking with, and the player has to describe the wildest things they got up to on one of their legendary nights out. That kind of setup means that the character already exists in a context that is relevant to the game at hand, and the other characters in the group. So when they start articulating their goals, other PCs are likely to factor into those goals, and there are NPCs likely already involved in those goals too.
Zee Bashew has a video called "How I GM" that lays out a simple way to do this. It also contains references to the sources that inspired him to create that method. Basically, he comes up with some prompts that help the players make up party dynamics and a party backstory on the spot.
Totally agree. I'll always encourage players to give their characters connections to other party members because it just makes rp so much more interesting and multi-layered. But you're right - in this style of game it REALLY helps to lower the chance that you create a round robin of character goal arcs 😂
@@GinnyDi Does the book have guidelines around this at all? Like, is there mention of having shared party-wide goals? It probably wouldn't be too hard to add, but I am curious if the authors thought about this. Thanks for the video! I'd never thought about running a game like this, but now it's all I want to do!
@@trimagnus I'd look into some of the Powered by The Apocalypse games. Those games run entirely on character bonds, goals, and outlooks. And there is a lot there that you can reverse into any system.
I have it! Great book. My best friend (and DM) and I were talking about it the other day. As an author, I can say that it reflects the way we think when giving our protagonists agency in their stories.
When I run games, I exclusively tie exp to character goals and other more generic goals like "make a powerful enemy/ally" or "Gain the admiration of a community" or a goal of uncovering a broader mystery of the campaign. It always keeps the players motivated to affect the world, and in the last case, engage in the world's lore.
I’ve tried to run a game like this a few years ago. It was exhausting, since I never knew what to work on at any given time every session was a scramble. I shut the whole thing down about ten sessions in because I was starting to burn out on ttrpgs as a whole because I felt like I couldn’t reliably prep anything more than a week or two ahead of time. A scramble session happens often enough in normal play, but it’s the exception rather than the rule.
I think you could use the long-term and medium-term goals to circumvent this issue. You can do a lot more prep ahead of time for longer-term goals and that can be what you fall back on when you don't have stuff for shorter-term goals prepped yet. Ultimately though, players will always find ways to surprise you, and as such flexibility and improvisation are pretty vital DM skills. It's certainly easier for some people than others, and I suspect once I get my opportunity to run a campaign it'll be a great hurdle for me.
@@waapfu that’s the problem, when the players are being reactive, you don’t know what they’re going to do, but you have a touch point. You’ve reduced it from infinite possibilities to a still large, but manageable number of large scale decisions and can improvise the small scale things. I may not know how they’re getting to the lair, but I was able to put together the dungeon over several months. If they’re the thing that’s driving everything, then I can’t really plan anything more than a session or two in advance.
@@Veelofar I did. This will probably sound bizarre, but there are three types of prepared game material (to my current understanding). In order of most concrete to most improvised they are: 1. Prep. The game material content you have from the adventure you bought or wrote. Traditional (trad) styles of D&D often lean heavily into the prep category. 2. Procedure. The rule systems, generative tables, hexcrawls, timelines, random encounters, and small pieces of modular content you make or buy to slot into the gaps around your prep. Simulationism emerges if you do a lot of procedural content. 3. Patch. The mostly-improvised rulings, informed judgements, spontaneous names or dialogues, and quickly imagined bits of content. These are best when they reinforce the world, or the atmosphere, or the pacing, and when they make sense (verisimilitude is a popular word). The patch category is popular with actor types and folks who intimately understand thier worldbuilding enough to riff off it. Anyhow, my point is that most people don't build out the proper tools for strong procedural or patch related content in order to run a broader world. It takes a little bit of time, but the Gygax75 challenge covers most of it in a hexcrawl, which systematizes your game into modular chunks so you can always drop in new content or use longer term plans. It's flexible and undemanding. I remember feeling worried and scrambling to change directions early on, but I got used to using procedural and patched details to steer players toward my prepared content, or simply generating enough content to entertain everyone for sessions on end. Most of the work for my campaign was done years ago, over the course of a month or two. I highly reccomend the gygax75 or something like it.
It's also important to note that I strongly perfer buying adventures that I can run with little to no prior reading. Adventures that are so easy to use because they have incredible editing and formatting. It requires reading reviews and hunting for the right kinds of adventures, but it means I have a collection of prepared adventures to operate a functional open world. I don't necessarily reccomend open world campaign structures to start with. But I do reccomend giving more modular types of content a try.
@@Veelofar if you need to plan out every detail and do so a long time in advance then you're best off running a linear adventure, which while not to my personal taste is a perfectly fine way to run a game. the more agency players are given, the more you're gonna have to improvise. things can be made a little more predictable by doing things like requesting that players tell you what they plan to do next session, but that only does so much.
This book changed my thinking as a dm and how I prepare. I honestly enjoy dming so much more than before and I feel that my gameplay is more immersive. Getting my players to fully commit has been the hardest part. Also, love your shirt!
I fully sympathise! I have an amazing group now but I've definitely experienced players who aren't happy to commit or put extra work in. Glad you enjoyed it though!
DM Hack: At the end of my game sessions I ask the group what they want to do during next session. I now know exactly what to prepare. This simple question saves me hours of prep time.
There are certain kinds of players who just want to ‘play a game’ and come in with much less investment in preparing their character. These kinds of players tend to handwave the ‘bonds and flaws’ section on their character sheet. These types of players WILL see the idea of coming up with their own goals and plot hooks as extra work they may not want to do. And that’s okay! This kind of tool only works with heavy player buy in. And it probably doesn’t work for every table. From a DM side, I don’t see it as less work for me. In fact, if my players don’t all collaborate on how their goals can be met together I may have to deliver on multiple plot hooks (a dragon and fishing tournament) rather than one hook for all of them at once (a dungeon with monsters in it that have the gold they all need). That said: this is a good and refreshing way to make games! But I don’t think it’s the silver bullet you describe it as. Great vid Ginny! Edit: also how will the players know the world or their character before playing the game? This seems like a huge amount of work in session 0 and 1. Again: sounds fun! Just not LESS tricky than regular villain focused campaigns.
"My character wants to slay the dragon that burned down their village", "My character wants to become filthy rich and retire in a castle", "My character wants to become a knight and serve the realm" all gives the GM stuff to incorporate into the setting without the players requiring massive amounts of foreknowledge. The GM is then free to create factions or NPCs tied to these goals, as allies and villains, to help put a face to the setting at large. As the game progresses and more of the world becomes known to their players their characters are free to gain new goals, which can be spun on further. This is a core part of games in the Powered by the Apocalypse system, for example, and the way it helps off-load the GM is by putting down constraints and direct the flow of creativity.
other games - such as traveller, have this mechanic baked into the game. This mechanic was also easer to see within D and D in the late 70's and 80's when people played "scenarios". Different scenarios offered different things to players and characters. Choosing which scenario to play next encouraged players to think about what they and their characters wanted out of the game and to go looking for it.
This reminds me a lot of the O-G-A-S system Guy Sclanders ("How To Be a Great GM") created to make NPCs "self-running." Occupation, Goal, Attitude, Stakes. The thing I can't believe I never figured out is, how applicable that system is to PCs as well, especially when you build it out this way. It also reminds me of how Austin Funk and Johnny Chiodini use the heroes' backstories (or lack thereof) as plot hooks. They run, respectively, Rolling With Difficulty and the Oxventure. It's important to acknowledge that this kind of thing does happen on its own, either through accident or design, but this book sounds like a really helpful resource!
I also thought of that when she briefly mentioned creating NPCs on the fly with their own motivation - especially since I've been using OGAS for a while now and it really helped me to focus on what my NPCs would do instead of who they "are".
I have to say, I'm incredibly sceptical. I've tried very player driven campaigns twice. The first one fell apart really fast and the second is ongoing, but early on. The reason the first one fell apart *because* the players wanted to be spoonfed the plot. What's been true for both is that it's been way more work on my part. Because I, the DM, have to be reactive. Especially for my prep style. I like to do heavy work up front, 20+ hours the week before the campaign, and just review my notes before each session. Every gee months I update my plan. With pc driven campaigns I'm instead consistently doing 3+ hours every week which is much harder for me. None of that is to say you shouldn't try it out. Im but trying to tear anyone down or start an agrument. But I don't think it's the golden goose it's presented as.
100% this. I couldnt agree with the theory more and would love to put it in action, but my table would literally not know what to do (even though they are always highly engaged). They want to be fed hooks not come up with hooks themselves 😢
I have a document I give players to create a backstory. Mentor/teacher Friend/ally Rival Enemy Goal/Motivation A word or short paragraph for each item.
Heard! All I can ever speak to is my own experience and my own perspective - and for me, prepping more broadly without letting player choices guide my focus was much, much more stressful and time consuming for me. So far, using this model, my prep workload has decreased. But everybody is different!
For me, player driven campaigns are all up front work and very little between sessions. Because "writing the campaign" is basically just the faction stuff mentioned in this video. You prepare the state of the world before the players intervene (particularly deciding who the major players are, what they want, and what resources they have access to to accomplish it). And that informs your response to what the players decide to do so it's more like you're playing characters of your own than writing an adventure. Prep time becomes minimal.
@@michaeldunkerton3805 it depends upon the other options. Some create a module for the players or even a campaign setting before the first session. Player driven games are about reacting to player choices. The nice thing about buying a module is having some one else doing some prep
This system is exactly like SMART goals in business. This type of goal setting has been around for decades. In my experience, most employees and managers actively dislike annual goal setting. I also remember buying a book about a decade ago that included short-, medium-, and long-term goal setting exercises for your personal life. It was incredibly difficult to create those goals beyond the extreme short term (i.e. the next week) and the extreme long-term (i.e. some life change years from now). I can't imagine putting in the effort for a D&D character who is just setting out in life. Have you tried asking a recent college grad what their short-, medium-, and long-term goals are? Are they specific and measurable? What are the first steps to achieving those goals? They don't know. Now add in the concept that the GM may have created the world so you may not even know all the options available to you. I'm not trying to negate this approach - just pointing out that this process may not be as slam-dunk for a lot of people as you make it sound.
@annereynolds7930 This is exactly what I was thinking. I despise SMART Goals at work, and I have no intention of incorporating them into my game. D&D is really a simple game at its core, IMHO.
The common negative gut reaction to this kind of format is a really good point. This shouldn't be as hard as real-life goal planning because it's a game you're playing for fun and you ideally can just change your mind later, but the format doesn't get that across. I think framing it as making a list of things that you think would be fun to do could be a way of removing pressure from the decisions, but what works for what players is always gonna vary.
So, i've played in a game where we were given agency. And i found it very unenjoyable. I constanrly felt lost and not sure what to do next as none of my goals seemed to fit. Its not for everyone but that's not a bad thing. Everyone's table is different. But saying it has no downsides just isn't the case, which is a shame as I feel like Ginny didn't give this the consideration she normally does.
As someone who also hates these goals at work I think there is a really important difference. The players can co-create the world of the GM is willing, and I think they have to be for this to really work. If I want my character to overthrow the evil ruler who stole my family's lands, I don't have to worry if this is an option, I tell the GM we discuss it and now there is an evil ruler who stole my family's lands. If you establish strong preexisting relationships between the PCs you also get a bunch of goals by proxy. Maybe your PC is the childhood friend of the guy who wants to overthrow the evil ruler so now you have that goal to do that too, or maybe just to try and keep him alive while he tries. You need to do a lot of coordination up front to make sure the party isnt pulled apart but players goals can inspire each other and help those having a harder time. SMART goals usually suck because someone just sticks a form in front of you and tells you to fill it in and then everyone ignores it. This needs to be an interactive group process. Of course if most or none of the group are on board it's not going to be a good approach.
I actually bought this book about six months ago and discussed it with my DM. We play a one-player-one-DM campaign, so I (as a player) decided to use these ideas with him as the DM. We have played several sessions so far, and it is wonderful. At the end of each session, I outline my plans for the next session, and he only has to design the encounters for that session, not the entire city I am exploring. Of course, he uses his extra prep time to flesh out those parts of the city that I MAY explore down the line, but the burden is on ME, the player. We both seriously LOVE this system. It is a gamechanger for us as well. Thanks for your video.
I've run a game with a very light version of a similar system. Every PC has a "big dream" that they can pursue. Actively taking steps and making risks/sacrifices to reach that big dreams is one of the ways they gain experience, making it something worthwhile to work towards. Having both short-term and long-term goals and dreams sounds like a great way to keep investing in ones character, and definitely something I try and bring to new games. And will definitely look into getting this book, thanks for the recommendation.
In Warhammer Fantasy roleplay there is a game mechanic where players get XP by completing self set goals. Big rewards for big overarching Goals like opening up your own tavern etc and for short term goals which can be one two a few sessions long. So completing personal goals literally equally higher stats (since you increase stats with XP directly on that system not level up like in DnD)
When long time DMs play characters, I've noticed that they do this pretty instinctually. Brand new players can struggle with having this amount of agency. I think this advice is particularly important when you are playing with established players who have never GMed and therefore don't think of this sort of thing themselves but are happy to do it.
Thanks for the video! Some of what you are describing is the Old School sandbox play style that us old timers have been using since 1974 when we started. Gameplay begets story, story is a byproduct of gameplay, players decide what they will do, the DM let's them know the consequences (often with the random help of the dice), rinse and repeat. The following contradicts what you have said. NPCs do not exist in a vacuum, they have their plans and if the PCs do NOT intersect with them, their plans come to fruition. These plans can spur bigger plans. This is how a campaign can scale with the PCs as they level up. The DM doesn't need to play it all out in real time. The DM just needs to decide what is happening in other parts of the world and flesh things out as the PCs' goals and plans scale up. The DM doesn't need to populate the whole world but making sure there are some important NPCs in various places helps it feel like there are people everywhere with goals and desires and lives apart from the PCs.
Such a great and succinct distillation of the core concepts of the book. So glad people are getting the word out about it, I have been positively effusive since I first picked it up! I mean, so many GM advice columns say "Don't prep plots, make the game about the PCs!" But often don't go far enough in giving concrete advice on how to actually do that. But this book does. It's clear, concise and really represents how we can all have a better, more fulfilling time at the game table. Nice one, Ginny!
I feel like this will only work well for very specific tables and players. Heroes are almost by definition reactive; the Joseph Campbell type Hero's Journey literally starts with a call to adventure as its first step, and most heroic stories are set up in this way. Often a hero who has a goal of something like "gain more power" is if anything more likely to be an anti-hero or a tragic hero, which is fine if that's what you're going for, but not everyone is into playing that type of character. My experience is that most players don't actually want a wide open sandbox where they can do anything they want and it's up to them to come up with their own motivation.
Big aha moment for me: Not every PC needs to start the campaign on the Hero's Journey. In other words, there doesn't need to be a triggering event for every character to become an adventurer/hero/villain right at the beginning. That's the "tragic backstory" fallacy. Some PCs can start adventuring for the simple reason of wanting to see more of the world, support a friend, etc. The trigger for their Heroic Journey can arrive via gameplay. So goals can be very broad and vague at the beginning. In that case, though, the GM would need to understand a character's motivations/morals/values are in order to provide them with that initial push onto the path of the Hero's Journey.
Interestingly, I found Curse of Strahd to fit pretty well with this approach. As a sandbox, the campaign (as I ran it) was largely driven by the players' goals--to find X, to figure out Y, etc. Strahd was definitely A Presence, but he didn't come directly into conflict with the players until the players' goals came into conflict with him. As a result, the conflict felt natural, and the victory all the more cathartic. This is to say, this approach can definitely be at least somewhat incorporated into published adventures as well. Though some take more work than others to figure out how to use the adventure while also letting the players and their goals guide the story.
I literally heard you say the title of this book, and ordered it. You’ve proven you have good taste in this sort of thing, and this sounds like exactly what I’ve been wanting to focus on
I have a homebrew game in which i didnt really plan out anything but the starting village. I just react to what the party does and have some small hooks that i may want to play out at some point if it fits the current narrative. But what actually happens is all my players. If they decide "we dont care about any quest, lets talk to the townfolk and see if they need some help" or whatever in that sense, i may just put some spy near the smithy that they might be able to spot at some point. Its so much fun compared to the hard wired campaign i dmed with another group. Now i think the major plot hooks can be a good orientation on what should happen at some point, but i dont want to set them in stone anymore. it puts so much pressure on my memory and organization to not forget anything
I've ran 2 campaigns in a similar fashion. No idea where it would go until the party was about level 5-6 and by then the players had desires and goals for their characters. Then I could craft a plot and a true BBEG.
Similar. Had a group of one shots that melded into a campaign as the player group gelled, and all the sessions started from a single town. By the time we made it official, there was a bad guy over the horizon... This book sounds like another variant of sandbox/open world play. Make up elements of the world, detail as PCs find things.
The proactive game is likely to involve adventures that are more morally ambiguous. Clearing the area around my stronghold? How? Of which existing inhabitants? Finding the legendary artifact? How many Neutral (or even Good) opponents are you prepared to go through just to get it? Then there are the consequences - what happens when the PCs stir up evil that was just quietly there before? The players will need a certain maturity to handle these type of challenges.
I think the level of moral ambiguity is a good thing to discuss in a Session Zero regardless of play style. If a group wants more proactive gameplay but really doesn't want to be mulling over the morals of a situation, it could be better to be a bit unrealistic about what NPCs stand between players and their goals, or just flat-out say "That doesn't seem like a good idea for this game because of x implications. What about this, instead?"
This is some of the best adventure design advice out there, which makes it unfortunate that the traditions of D&D published adventures kind of sabotage it... Because D&D adventures have to assume that the PCs will be any adventure that a player creates independently of the campaign, they have to be written with the PCs as a basically random adventuring party. In other words, they have to write a story without a main character, and with a plot that can motivate any random adventuring party. So that's why pretty much every published adventure is "stop the BBEG from gaining the power to destroy the world." I think the best way to use the advice in the book and this video is to design campaigns where the players and GM come up with a shared party goal at the beginning of the campaign, and then design the campaign around accomplishing that goal. Basically, make them all have a shared element of their backstory, and then make the campaign about resolving that backstory. Chains of Asmodeus basically does that and it's awesome. In fact, I plan on this being one of the topics of one of my first videos and little adventure modules!
I haven't read the book, so I don't know whether this aspect is covered therein. But I would note that this approach to proactive PC play is exponentially empowered by the extent to which the players understand the world of the campaign, on a detailed level. One of the basic epistemological reasons why campaigns fall into reactive play by default is that the players only know (only can know) what the DM tells them about the world. There's an inherent imbalance of available information which must be overcome if true player agency is to arise. Therefore, while I wholeheartedly agree with Ginny's advice in this video, I dispute the contention that it will save time for DMs -- we must invest many hours into describing our campaign settings and communicating them to our players. Knowledge is power (cue rainbow star, "The More You Know").
During session 0 I like to ask the players to define at least one shared goal or motivation for all their characters, one personal goal they share with another PC and optionally one goal in whitch their character is in opposition to another PC. This sets up cohesion and tension from the start.
My favorite DM has a hybrid style that is basically he presents a campaign ARC and we players give personal arcs at character creation and party goals at session 0. This then sets up the timelines for what might happen.
This is why that system of Zee Bashews seems cool. Have players write out adventure types, good/bad encounters etc and shuffle them in a bowl, then select at random. Not tried it yet but this seems like a way to connect to that mechanic
@9HPRuneScape oh yeah got Bashew to thank for that. I use a ton of his mechanics, including a tetris-slot fill style system to deal with player inventory & encumbrance
I like it best if goals emerge from gameplay interactions. My latest group was often worried they "messed up my plot", so I kept reassuring them that there is no plot. They are loving the story, though, which is great as most of it comes from where they take it.
Let me just say, your timing is impeccable. I wanted to talk with my friend and DM of our campaign about this, because, especially recently, he is very much only furthering the main plot and I do not dare use the "R" word here. Every session we are presented with new and even more extreme and urgent problems to solve and the mountain gets ever only higher. We had plot hooks and even characters from our characters backstories that just died on a whim because of this, severing threads of every possibility to go along our plots. We are constantly loosing by chasing a newer, more urgent problem and evil and it starts to suck. You just put a lot of my problems with the campaign into words, so I can talk about this with him.
This is actually what I needed to run a great Rogue Trader game. Rogue Traders and their retinues are quite free, they have a ship, it's so hard to force them to react to something. "Oh a dangerous Chaos Cult... exterminate the planet!" Problem. Solved. This proactive approach is great for such free games.
So, I've been playing Owlcat's Rogue Trader CRPG and there are some lovely plot elements around Rogue Traders trying to control territory. To seal the deal to get feality from a starving trade station I needed shipments from my agricultural world, which had been cut off by warp shifts. Reopened warp path and discovered they couldn't ship anything due to a raging rebellion. Investigation revealed the uprising had been fomented by xenos who had originally engineered the world's biosphere, but the Governor seemed suspicious, too - found out she had turned to Chaos cultists to get the power to put down the uprising. In the end, xenos took my deal to end rebellion in exchange for keeping their colonies at specific ruins and were given free license to hunt down cultists. Governor I executed and replaced with a competent crime family I had indirectly stolen the business of earlier - under the circumstances they were more than grateful for the opportunity to move up in the world. That all could have gone very differently, lots of interesting choices.
It's great to see how hyped you are for this idea, Ginny! Unfortunately, this is one of those things that sound GREAT to the GM, but players will generally reject it. Asking players to state a concrete goal is already a tall ask for many players. Most people I play with will be perfectly content doing some monster-killing jobs, leveling up and finding loot. Or they may have some general thing driving them like "I wanna see the Feywild!" or "I wanna become a powerful sorcerer!". Asking them to make those goals fullfill several tough criteria IS a lot to ask of them. And then when they reach their goal, they need to immediately come up with a new valid goal somehow... Even as a DM, it's not going to be low-prep smooth sailing either. When the PCs goals are... o) collect dragon teeth o) grow a brewery business o) bring the corrupt governor to justice o) become pirate king by sinking rival pirate ships o) complete a pilgrimage to mount Bergenstein ... then as a DM you'd have to go, "No wait, ALL of your goals need to align and they all should also go against the goals of these (evil) organisations", then the supposed player freedom is out the window again and we are basiclaly "back to normal". I truly wish this would be the holy grail you make it out to be, but I'm afraid it won't survive contact with (most) actual players.
It's nice to see this style of GM'ing from PbtA games (Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, etc.) being imported into DnD, finally. It's very much about letting the players define the world and building up adventure fronts based on what players and player characters tell the GM.
Pretending like this is a PbtA thing is really insulting lol This stuff is all the basics for running any TTRPG. I'm sorry that you have all just had very bad groups.
A formula i like to use in my games; opening mini adventure establishes setti g and give players a chance to feel out their character. Half develop 5 to 9 plot hooks, see which ones the players grab. Discard all but one missed plot hook, have one of the discsrded plot hooks develop in fhe background until its nog ignorable, but let the players purue the other ones too. The main villain will either be one of the ones they seized immediately, or the one the persisted, but i wait and see which way they go.
ya know, I always tried to run games this way, and it has saddly been pushed away by the dominantly produced content. I will absolutely be buying this book and thank you for bringing this to so many peoples attention.
What timing! I actually picked up this book at my local bookstore a couple weeks back and have been raving about it to anyone who will listen. Wasn't sure I could convince my players to read the entire thing, but maybe they'll be convinced to watch a 13 minute video. Thanks Ginny!
The general gist im getting is that integrating the characters motivations/backstories/etc into the plot is a good thing, which for me seems like good baseline advice. One thing I ask every player every session zero is: "why is so and so an adventurer and not something else?" The reluctant hero stuff makes little sense when class features show up level 1. Then, once I have the motivation, fleshing out backstory is easier. Once motivation and backstory are clear, then brainstorming goals in the setting is easier. A nomadic dwarf sorcerer is obsessed with the stars? The stars positions are different at the parties entrance into the new setting. The player may not have specifically set the goal of finding out why the stars are different here, but that character trait leads to plot related goals directly tied to their background. I also keep a session zero type communication going throughout campaigns to check in and update motivations and the why of it all.
I am really glad to see this channel gained a lot of wisdom in the last months. The structure you proposed, is a character based campaign. Here some instructions on how to start one: [Character based campaign session 0]: 1) The DM describes the setting characteristics (named the "6 truth of the World" in the "Return of the Lazy DM" book). 2) Only after* the Players creates characters linking them between each others and the setting. 3) Only after** the DM comes up with a campaign, based on characters backgrounds and possible development arcs, and NPCs *It is ok for player to have some ideas, but they shouldn't flesh out the character independently on the settings and other characters, otherwise the PC will be disconnected from the setting and the other PCs. **It is ok for the DM to have some campaign ideas, but he shouldn't have a plot in mind before the PC are created, otherwise the plot will end up be disconnected from the PC interests. This means to abandon the "my campaign" mindset to welcome "their campaign" mindset. There is no plot. The PC arcs are the plot, and the event of the settings/NPCs are influencing and engaging them from the background. To me, this is the highest way you can play this game, and something which cannot be replicated (for example in videogames). To be clear, every official campaign, isn't a character based campaign, since can be completed by any character, independently who they are. This is impossible in a character based campaign. Example: Dad and daughter are searching mom (which is a crucial setting's NPC) together with friends. This campaign can't be played by other characters.
It seems really obvious when read out but the part about PC relevant goals (short, medium and long term) is so important and something I have struggled with when players are new and are quite superficial at character creation. I'll have to try using the template!
This came at such a good time! Might have to pick up this book! We are resuming my campaign after a 4 year hiatus with a slightly different player lineup of people who enjoy creating backstories, so I think these tips will help influence a lot of my preparation. Thank you Ginny!
“Heart: the city beneath” takes a ton of these tips and makes them a part of how players level up. You are asked to select a story archetype together with a character class. This archetype provides story beats. Players take two beats at the end of each session and tell them to the GM who will shape the story to make reaching these goals possible. Reaching a goal gives players a perk with bigger goals leading to stronger perks. It’s fun!
The more I read comments on dozens of these channels, the more I realize and appreciate the unicorn nature of my game group. We've all had the itch to GM/DM, all love to engage new systems and ideas, and are willing to just go for it. It hadn't occurred to me how hard it could be for folks, because we've always had those opportunities.
This made me realize as a player that I spent so long figuring out a personality and backstory for my newest character that I kinda neglected giving her any real goals. I guess at this point I'll have to keep an open mind as we move through this introductory story hook and try to pick out things she might create a goal out of.
Huh, I think I might have accidentally somewhat adopted this style in a campaign I'm running. I didn't want to start with the classic "you're all in a tavern" starting point, so I decided to ask the players to come up with a reason why they'd be looking for a soothsayer and why they'd keep pursuing them even if it gets difficult/weird - this caused them to think of a question they wanted answered, and how it tied into some goal that's important to their character. That said, I made the mistake of doing individually tailored intros all leading them to the same destination, which was maybe a mistake. If I were doing it again I'd try to group players a little to try and establish pre-existing bonds, and avoid having to jump around between six different events until they finally started meeting each other. I've definitely still managed to do way more work than I needed to, but that's been my choice to go overboard rather than a necessity. Still, it's a lot of fun, and has informed quite a bit of the main story as I get to think about how their different goals are all tied together actually, because the soothsayer isn't at all what he appears to be (and what he appears to be is a sentient eclipse hidden in an infinite void inside a sealed chamber under Baldur's Gate)… 😈
It sounds like a lot more work than less work though. It feels like it includes a lot of ending sessions early so you can prepare whatever they want to do for next time.
@@nimz8521 I'd say it's about the same overall (aside from me making my first session more complicated than it needed to be, but that was my own fault). It's not really about reducing work but rather its sharing the creative burden - now instead of the DM having to come up with everything, the players provide their own goals that the DM can weave into a story. It just makes the whole process that bit more collaborative. Though it is a bit easier to work backwards from a player goal than it is to try and do the whole thing yourself, as you don't need to think about what will motivate a character to do it (only why the others will), and a lot of details can almost fill in themselves. There's still plenty of room for creativity though. For example, one of my characters is searching for a missing relic, but I decided that the soothsayer would reveal that they were the one that ordered it stolen, and makes a deal - they'll reveal where the relic was taken if the character agrees to wear it and commune with their goddess to find out how she wants it to be used. This will then tie in to the parts of the main quest I'm still coming up with myself. So instead of coming up with the entire main quest, plus all related side quests building up to it, I can make the side quests be the character's individual goals. This has helped to spark off ideas of my own and so-on, it's a fun way to do it, at least in my experience.
I've tried to do this in so many games, but it's not a magic bullet. It requires players who WANT to give that kind of effort, even when prompted to do so and given all the help and assistance in the world. Far too often have I said to a group "okay, so is anyone doing anything now?" and gotten dead silence in return; it's not the characters who can only react to things, but the players who cannot bring themselves to tell a story of their own. I'd love to run a game like Ginny is describing, but it takes buy-in on the other side of the screen as well, and of the 25 players I regularly run games for, ONE has taken proactive measures to follow story, and he did so ONE TIME. Any advice on how to foster those instincts would be greatly appreciated.
Here is an idea that worked very well for my players, esp. ones as you describe - at the end of each session, I have my players make goals (and bonds, which are just statements about other players that might guide their actions). The next session, we review them, and they will get experience at the end of the session if they made progress towards their goals, or role-play their bonds.(I also give a base amount of XP just for showing up.) this creates a structure, an incentive, and an expectation for the players, so they aren’t blindsided by getting asked what direction they want to go in the middle of the session. And since they know that it’s going to happen, they often thinking about what their next goal and bond will be throughout the session. Hopefully that sounds like something that’s worth a shot! [edit - I stole this from a game called Dungeon World, so check that out if you want more info.]
I have "social" players, too, and it's hard to get them to buy in. They like hanging out, eating pizza, rolling dice, and pummeling whatever monsters I throw in front of them. They aren't interested in doing any work. Maybe they don't trust that doing some work has real payouts? Maybe I've done too much work for them and they're having "enough fun" just interacting with the world I've put them in? Every table is different. Good luck!
This is good advice for experienced players and DMs. It's good to remember that new players (and DMs) only have the context of board games when they come to the table. For many if not most of them, "You can do ANYTHING! What are your character's three goals?" will be a baffling, frustrating task. So intro this concept slowly for new players, and be ready to partner with them to create their first set of goals. The bigger challenge here, and the challenge with "narrative" games in general, is that narratives have a main character. And an approach like this one (the author may address it) means that at any given time the players aren't aligned on a single goal (plotline) they are pursuing four or five. It's not necessarily less work figuring out how to weave five plotlines together in a way that is satisfying for every player at the table and manageable for the DM.
07:45 This isn't a new way of running games! It's an old way of running games! Before the Dragonlance saga (c. 1984) many/most D&D games were this sort of open-world sandbox type. The DM designed a world, put people, places, and situations in it and then let the player characters loose on it. Of course, back then, there was normally one or more "megadungeons" available for the player characters to explore - especially if playing in a "points of light" sort of setting. The old format published adventures were "modular", hence the term "adventure module", so that they could be placed into such a setting and used as set pieces for the party - they didn't have that sort of long-term story arc that the more modern long-campaign "adventure path" sort of books have. It does mean that the DM has to be prepared to generate a lot of things pseudo-randomly and then be able to join some of those things together into a bigger piece for the setting to give the impression of some sort of cohesive, living world behind the scenes. It also means that the players have to be prepared to participate in this sort of world building and be "self-sufficient" in determining their own goals. This book seems to be trying to wrap a framework around that. It's still a good idea if the DM does provide some story hooks or is just prepared to (randomly) detail aspects of the setting that the party can interact with otherwise they might just sit around in the tavern, go on shopping trips, open up a coffee shop, or whatever. Left entirely to their own devices they may also want to do things that the DM doesn't really enjoy running and, as the DM might want to have fun too, this might not work out for the gaming group. As in most things, it's a balance. The players should have freedom within a setting, but the setting is (mostly) one that the DM provides as, if they don't like the way things are going, they'll likely disband the game.
What a coincidence. I literally just stumbled across this book 2 weeks ago and was blown away after putting it down. It really changed how I approached GMing moving forward. I'm glad that you finally made a video about it and gives it more attention it rightfully deserves.
This sounds great unless your players don't want this kind of game. Some players don't want to have to come up with their goals, some players hate doing this... this should have started with - check with your players and what type of game they want. The worst thing is asking players to do this who don't want to, then the game is dead.
Yeah I’d love if the players all wanted to do this. 33% of my current campaign did want to. The others just wanna play the game and react to what happens.
Here are the rules she outlined: 1. Each character should have multiple goals. 2. Goals should have varying time frames (short term, mid term, and long term). 3. Goals must be achievable/measurable (has an obvious completion point). 4. Goals must have consequences for failure (basically if the player attempts to achieve the goal and fails they shouldn't just be able to try again, something should change as a result of that failure (this gives the goal stakes which makes it interesting)). 5. Goals must be fun to pursue.
I think this might work with half of my adult group (early 20s thru 60s). However my 12 year old and 14 year old groups, just will not do goals with the exception of; kill all the others, be turned into a demon that can turn others into dust just by pointing at them, become a god, kill everything, steal all the other players characters stuff, not go home, join the adult group, . . . This really seems like something for seasoned players, who know the rules, understand role playing, understand working as a group, understand letting others have the spot light, and want more than just killing stuff to blow off steam.
Yep, did 90% of all that 😂 But a huge issue is to make sure that the individual goals of the adventurers overlap. If that's not the case, at least one of them will feel like they're just being dragged along. We literally said goodbye to one character yesterday in our 5th session because there was no reason for him to fight alongside our group.
I started a campaign recently and am super excited about my character, but I'm already seeing where I might need to retire her earlier than I'd like because I can't figure out why she'd be hanging out with most of the party. In general, I'm struggling to see how the character concepts for any of the party members gel with each other. I just seem to be the player most concerned about it. Going through an exercise to define PC goals might make this discrepancy more obvious to the other players (or might prove me wrong and show me that these PCs really can gel).
Literally question 2 of the 10 minute player background is "List at least two goals for the character. At least one of these goals should be one that the character has, while another should be one that you, as a player, want to see developed over the course of the game." - it's collaborative storytelling
I've been turned off of tabletop gaming because I've only ever had DMs who either wanted to run the campaign on rails, actually hijacking the players by kidnapping or putting them in places where there was literally no choice what we had to do. And provided no rewards because of their control freak nature - or who thought every second out of combat was wasted time. So we mindlessly encountered monsters every few feet. It was stupid.
Many of my players and I have read this over the last few months and each of us have had eye-opening realizations. It's an easy read and it has some GREAT suggestions for how to empower your players and create concrete ties between their motivations/goals and the narrative. One of my players who wants to DM read it and said that he "gets it now." He felt like he wouldn't enjoy following a prewritten adventure. This book opened up the wide array of alternatives where you (and your players) can create the world and their story within it together. He now wants to DM for our group and I couldn't be happier!
I disagree about "irrelevant NPC goals". To make your world feel alive and not centered around the PCs, having pseudorandom unrelated plots and events occurring around the PCs gives them a choice of reacting or continuing with their personal goals. Maybe the PCs are happy to take a break and capture a monster for the annual monster parade in a new town. If not, the parade is still some nice background flavor for their shopping trip, and if the players seem bored, whoops, one of the monsters in the parade gets loose! Don't let anyone at the table be 100% reactive, even the DM.
Even as a player, this is super eye opening. It makes me rethink how I build my backstory/goals and how useable those are for my DM. Having a set of smaller goals as well makes so much sense to drive the narrative, and yet I'm so used to seeing players have one or two major goals, which makes it harder to reach and see progress. This was super interesting, thanks Ginny!
sweet! thats how my campaign has been going! my players have been adding to my world. we live in a shire and one invented a museum there so it became a plot point. another one wants a necklace that will change him from quadruped to biped. and I can only imagine the shenanigans the last plans for us. she bought a nice dress, maybe I can create a wedding or other even she can wear it to.
I just implemented this at my table last night. I was worried my players wouldn't want to engage in the "homework" of writing goals, and EVERY SINGLE ONE knocked it out of the park! My creative energy is refreshed and I'm really excited to see how the game develops now! I love when you offer up these tips that make our GM lives easier!
One thing I did for my almost 3 year long running campaign was allowed them to do whatever they wanted after the first major arc. during their character creation I was able to ensure all their characters would have reason to be invested in the first quest/arc, then afterwards I took a step back and asked "what's next?" to the players, told them some of the options, offered up timeskips, and now years later I have a clear list of locations and quests I have to prep for the party and can start on those now instead of 2 weeks before the players are meant to play it.
I love my reactive players too, though. Just... it turns into a lot of work trying to get (my, specifically) reactive players to do anything, and I haven't figured out how to balance the two things yet. A work in progress, it is. I love them both, but if the ONLY half of the party that shows up is the reactive members, everyone stands around doing nothing scratching their dice trays and literally waiting for me to goad them like cattle. This is my players, I am not saying this is universal, or even all the time with them. They're fun to play with, and our play-style with each other is growing and evolving all the time. We discuss it.
I do agree that allowing proactive players is great and makes prep easier! I do a mix, design borh proactive and reactive stuff for players, mostly because I like world building a lot and I sometimes freeze on the table if things go haywire and I got no ideas, so having a backlog of things I've designed just for fun, regardless do players play on those or not gives me good jumping board if I or players are stuck figuring what is the next step, just to have something to adapt/reused and throw at them when there is need for a push for some direction. Also, having things just happening in the world in the background gives a sense that world is alive, even if players aren't intrested on it, and might at somepoint turn in to something they want to look into, like thinking wars, politics faction things etc as enviromental effects, if you get my drift? Even if players never interrract with the court of the country, things that happen n the court can have impact on how stuff works in other places, including things players are interested in. I got one player who loves this a lot, they notice my barely fleshed out ideas about a faction I made as a background flavour and in next campaign, they want to build a character that is interracting with that faction, even though it was no interest to their current character which I introduced the idea to. Of course, one should not over do it, but as something to put in when you got time and energy for it as a extra treat.... It's just a blast. specially if you get your proactive players flesh out parts of the world for you with the parametters you can affect and wiggleroom given to you how to use that stuff, it frees a lot of time, but doesn't nesseserally add that much extra work for the player - just makes them excited when they can participate, was their contribution either big or small, it's all a win for the GM.
@@GinnyDi Absolutely, new GM's need more tools and resources. With all the experience I have, its hard to sit down and explain how to be a good GM to a new player. The best you get is to lead by example. It's like trying to explain to someone how to ride a bike, the best experience is just doing it, trying and failing, and this is discouraging to new GM's who need to suffer to find their stride. It's actually getting worse now with the new VTT tools, using foundry VTT is amazing but incredibly daunting and thats a completely separate and uneeded skill.
As Ginny was talking about "making characters FEEL like the hero" & "having big goals of their own"(?), I found myself coming up with a fun encounter/ premise/ campaign hook. The idea was for a travelling "con man" (Mid to high level rogue or bard with high skill in deception & disguise) visits each character before they become adventurers & gives them an INSPIRING talk about some GRAND DESTIRY they have (IF they work hard to achieve them). Either posing as a visiting member of the "clergy" connected to the local church & receiving a "vision" about the character. Or a "seer" (diviner), or a visiting noble, etc. Of course, he receives some small "tithe"/ gift for his inspiring words. And this, of course, sets the players on the path to become not only, great adventurers, but to accomplish some "great" thing(s)! (setting affecting Goals) And even funnier is later in their adventuring career, whilst sneaking through some evil Lord's Castle's Dungeon, they FIND their "benefactor" is a prisoner! (His Cons caught up with him.) And he (eventually) confesses that he is a Con Man & there was NO "prophesy"/ "divine vision" / pre-destination relating to the characters all along!
RPG publishers tend to push the opposite direction from this style of play. Perhaps not consciously, but quite distinctly. The more players realise that they can just pull all their adventures out of their shared imaginations, the fewer setting and adventure books get sold. So it's definitely worth continually reminding each other that we don't actually need to buy books to roleplay.
Imagine if a campaign were designed to be read by both players and the DM, to inspire both of them! Eberron is such a perfect source book, designed for both players and characters to inspire fun origins and even motivate what they want to accomplish in the world. I wish a little more of the D&D offerings were pitched this way.
I started doing this recently with my players! I got inspired with Warhammer Fantasy RPG where one step of creating a PC is setting their short-term and long-term "ambitions". They go even further and urge players to come up with ambitions/goals for the whole party, this really tightens up the group and force them to think wy they're travelling together. And the best part - it all works, I stopped worrying if the stuff I prepare will interest my players because they tell me directly what they want to do session to session. Will be picking up this book, thanks!
Not really. Many people still run sandox as reactive, meaning players have multiple options and dont have a railroad "main quest", but it is still the master giving them possible goals to achieve. This is more about players dictating the motive and desireable results of their arcs, doesnt matter if the quests are from an adventure module or a sandbox
Ginny, whether you meant for this video to be an ad or not (and I know you didn't), it worked. My son, who plays a Dragonborn Monk in my current campaign, gave me the NPCs book in this series a few months ago and it has been such a cool resource for me. So it was a no-brainer for me to order this book (even before the end of your video). DMs need all the help they can get. So, thanks, Ginny! You're awesome and I truly appreciate your videos! Keep going!
My world has “stuff” going on. Players do what they want to do. Usually this has to do with going after a bad guy, searching for something, or solving a problem of some sort. They have a lot of options at any one time. They often have to choose which ones are more important to them. My characters have goals in their character backgrounds, but they are personal to them. These often get left undone, but they also don’t have time limits. My opinion is, build a world and let your players be born in it (or end up in it). Let them choose what they want to do.
Although our campaign stories are of the more traditional “plot hook and response” kind, at our main table our DM has always encouraged individual character goals and worked them into the story and made room for us to reach them. And he pays attention to what’s driving them when he crafts challenges and rewards. One thing this has done for our table is to keep things interesting across campaigns and encourage character growth enough for us to reach higher levels of play. Those goals can be serious or playful. A few examples - one of my characters started her arc as a sailor who was pressed into piracy. She now has her own island free port, and is head of a powerful pirate cartel. Another character in that campaign, who was forcibly transplanted into the fantasy world from our own, introduced the concept of the hamburger and established a burger chain that has gone global. Another married a prince. And our DM recycles these characters as NPCs in his world when we run new campaigns, so achieving big in-game goals also gives one’s character a post-game life in the world.
I’ve definitely used my PC’s backstories to enhance plots but I’ll definitely be using THEIR goals as the reason to go on an adventure from now on. Great vid!
The Legend of the Five Rings RPG naturally encourages goal setting, as every character has a "ninjo" which is their heart's desire, and a "giri" which is their practical purpose/job. And as a GM, you're encouraged to pit the ninjo and giri against each other. I'm running an entire campaign just from doing that over and over, and it's great.
Another thing I think people forget is that a Game Master does not have to make up everything about the campaign. When I start a new campaign, I'll spend part of session 0 drawing the map for the area with player input. I'll place the starting town in the center of the map, draw in a couple of things I want to be there (say, a couple of roads and some hills, with the statement that the goblins who live in those hills have been waylaying travelers). Then, I'll ask each player to add something to the map, giving them prompts if they're having difficulty. (Like, "Okay... what *big* monster lives here that everyone in the area is afraid of?")
I read this book a few months ago and have been using it in a Pathfinder 2e game. Only 4 sessions in so far but I've been loving running it as a GM and my players have been saying that they think every session has been great, one of them even said that our first session was the best opening session they had been in for a long time This book has completely changed the way I DM for the better, I love it. It is essential reading for anyone interested in running a "narrative sandbox"
Great video. Weirdly enough, when I was first thrown into DMing, this was a style I enacted despite the main plot being a SKT. I never railroaded, but the world was always changing depending on player decisions. The bad guy doesn't stop bad guying just because the party opts to do something else. Those changes DO NOT have to be negative. They only became negative when the party pushed far enough where they were a threat that required attention. They freely explorered their own goals and despite finishing SKT, we've continued onto their personal stories which depending on their level of intensity have become Story-worthy BBEG content in its own right.
First, I want to thank you for all the advice and tips. They have been a great help. I ordered that one and 3 others in the series. Eventually I will have the full set. I was looking for a book about cities and towns. I saw the series is coming out with a book for that November. I will wait on it. Your channel along with other channels in the community have been a real help. I am a visual learner. However I enjoy physical books too. I like that I will be able to physically highlight things and make notes on. My first game session won’t be a paint by numbers of what I have learned. I will apply what I learned to bring my version to life.
I’ve been playing TTRPGs for about 25 years now. Most of my games have been D&D but I have played a ton of other stuff too. I honestly think that one of the best things you can do if you want to be a better DM is to try playing other games. Some games have a wildly different focus than D&D does and while that might not really be your thing to be a majority of a game, it does give you a lot that you can bring back to your D&D games for when those things come up. The big thing Ginny talks about in this video is offloading some of the work on the players. Make them have goals and tell you what they want to see. This is literally a mechanic of the game Heart. They use something called the Beats system. The players essentially tell the GM what they want to see in this session, a story beat (Heart, get it?), and then their characters progression is somewhat tied to them dealing with that thing. Playing Heart really got me thinking about this kind of interaction between the GM and players. While I dont have a full on mechanic that requires the players to state their goals when I run D&D games, I certainly bring those experience from Heart into how I approach running games and its made me a better GM. I know it seems like asking a D&D player to try something else is tough, it really is worth it. There are a ton of great games out there with valuable lessons to bring back to D&D if that’s where you really want to spend most of your RPG time.
Ginny, thank you for recommending this book. As an old grognard, it's always a good idea to keep my ear out for new ideas for fear that my style will become stale. This is an idea that I had never really thought of, and I've been playing since the mid-70s. Thanks for showing an old dog a new trick.
Excellent as always. Here's the full tldr: We weren't as player focused when I started in the 80's, at least not the way it is now, but even Gygax said in the PHB (p. 6) that in the campaign and in the game the players are as responsible as the DM for making it a good experience for all. The onus still seemed to fall on the DM more, simply because *they* have to do all the adventure and setting prep, even if the players guide it. And to that extent, there can never be total freedom, even with full player agency *and* the help of ai. Like that quote at 4:15 "the GM decides how to turn these ... into unforgettable encounters." And "unforgettable" is a lot of work (and pressure) for the GM, who must do so repeatedly as needed. Point is, this is the common approach, the proper one perhaps, but not an insignificant thing to achieve. And the players can only contribute so much. But I agree, this strat is very useful. The goal after all is for everyone to have fun, and it's no more fun being a frustrated GM than a disappointed player.
Just learned that the authors of this book have a free community for GMs to discuss and improve their craft! Could be a good resource if you plan to try out these techniques at your own table: gamemasterlaboratory.com
Recieved this book as an Xmas gift from a friend. Very interesting.
So I'm really glad that helps you, but from where I'm sitting as a GM, this doesn't really save any significant prep time. I've also been running games over 3 decades... what this objective achieves is it gives you a start point the characters/players have some kind of vested interest in. You still need to do all your plot and encounter building around all of that... so this saves you maybe 2 min to decide what the impetus for the adventure is, and in some cases it may not even save that if you have to pull teeth to get players on board with this kind of format.
What I've done in my game system is have players make what I call personal stakes, which are things the players care about and have goals around. It could be anything, and the GM is able to use that as impetus or not as they prefer when designing adventures. Where this matters is that players gain mechanical benefits and detractions when their personal stakes become involved so they have a vested interest in making sure and justifying their behaviors about the things they care about. This provides all the utility but doesn't force the GM to revolve the plot around the PCs necessarily, which can end up being just as boring/repetitive/immersion breaking as never doing that.
The key here, I think as a game system designer and decades of GMing experience is to have a balance between the two where the PCs are not always the most important thing going on, and times when they are. This makes for feelings of achievement and motive to really appeal to any kind of player and it's less predictable and more believable regarding plot structure. There are both internal and external motivations to work with and you can push or let the PCs pursue as needed for the pacing of the table. PC's currently in a choice quagmire? Drop a bombshell on them that forces them to react... PCs currently wanting to pursue a specific goal? Give them reactions to what happens. No two tables are going to be exactly alike in wants/needs/desires and pacing needs can change mid session, let alone week to week or table to table.
I would say what you're saying isn't at all "BETTER" but it's instead another tool you should have in your box. I do get why this can "feel" liberating at first by not having the tool for so long, and now you want to use it all the time, but the key for a master craftsman is to use the right tool for the right job, and that means sometimes using this format you are excited about GD, and also bringing in more structured events.
Either way I feel like what's important here isn't what area you start with or end up at, so long as you get those organic moments of fun, and if you're any good as a GM and your players are at all creative those moments are going to come up more often than not anyway. I've been doing this for decades and I can say for certain it doesn't matter what you prep or didn't prep, or how, but there's going to be that one NPC the players latch onto that was not even in your notes a little, and there's going to be a cool moment where PCs massively succeed or fail in spectacular, status quo altering ways, and none of that matters based on what you started with, player goals or a big bad. Those things just happen, and they are the "fun" game part of the game, and that's what is really important. I would say GMs will again, be better equipped if they use both methods in tandem. Not everything should always be about the players, but some things should, and allowing that to happen at the table and put some thought into how is just something I'd recommend as normal prep.
If you, as a GM, need to figure out what the motivations of all the NPCs are, shouldn't you also understand the needs and motivations of the players are to build that cooperative story around? Seems to me like that's the better approach, do both, not one or the other.
my crew is in a proactive campaign
That's one of the reason I always push for sandbox play. No predetermined story, adventure book or what have you. Any other way of playing hinder the one and only quality ttrpgs have over all other media : the combination of freedom and creativity.
This is also why taking control of a PC as a DM regardless of how it's done is a big nono but that the other way around is ok if not over used. (because the first stops playing while the other just temporarily lose some of it's near omni potency)
Also...It's way easier for players to be invested in what they wanna do then what you want them to do. It's also more respectful of the cooperative nature of the game and the players by actually letting them have some of the responsibilities. Who would have guessed that a game meant to put the spotlight on a group would run more smoothly by letting said group decide what they want to do ? Almost sounds like taking all the responsibilities and imposing near everything on everyone else on what is supposed to be a cooperative effort is a toxic practice...
Who would have guessed eh ? No seriously I am more pissed at every single ttrpgs group who think the dm decides everything and thus can do whatever the fuck they want.
Glad you had such an easy time realizing and accepting you were doing it wrong. That's no small feat most people can't admit it to themselves let alone broadcast it.
It's really cool that you wrote the foreward to that book and I think that it would be awesome if you wrote your very own book!
Most of my players are people I know from work, so I'm giggling a little at the idea of sitting them down and saying "OK, I want each of you to set goals for your characters. Ideally they should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Every couple of months we'll check in to see how you're tracking on your goals and whether they need to be adjusted."
I suspect they would burn me at the stake.
"Helen. I noticed that Xyrelle is only tracking at a 0.5 on her 'avenge my parents' OKR. What can we do to bring this up to a 0.7?"
Hahaha! Buisnesses and Banshees? Accountants and Aboleths? Spreadsheets and Sphinxes?
Interestingly, I learned SMART from my therapist - but I'm probably not going to sit him down for a TTRPG session anyway, so it's not going to get as awkward ;D
@@connorkennedy1794 In the 1979 AD&D dungeon masters guide there's a cartoon of a group of wizards and warriors sitting around a table rolling dice with the caption "It's a great new fantasy role-playing game. We pretend we're workers and students in and industrialized and technological society."
That was my first reaction, too. I love the image you've painted here. It really got me giggling this morning.
@@carlfishy I own a module with a reference like that, too. I think it was What Ho! Frog Demons! Which has a battlefield haunted by ghostly generals playing war games like D&D with dice.
The more I delve into the world of DnD I realize just how different my first campaign was. This is basically how we played. The Gm presented us a world and just said "What do we want to do?" So we ended up building a castle for us and creating our own crime syndicate. There were all kinds of plots surrounding the creation of the crime syndicate and it was awesome. But I do give props that our gm was incredible at improvising and coming up with stuff on the spot. I must say I'm really glad my first game was so unorthodox.
That's awesome! What a fun first experience
@@googiegress Nothing new there. Orthodoxy is always generational.
For me it's weird, as a GM I prefer sandboxes and as a player, I prefer more story.
I try to give my players as much free reign as possible. I try to steer them towards interesting stuff, but if you wanna go fishing for 3 hours, that's cool, too.
This is how I prefer to run DnD. Most players cant handle it, especially semi experienced ones. They just look for plot hooks
Mine were a lot like that too, despite my teenage GM failings. I didn't encounter a proper railroad adventure until years after I started GMing. I had a level 1 dungeon crawl for D&D, then some VtM "by night" adventures, which are NPCs relationships web urban sandboxes. Around the time I tried the more railroady adventures (and didn't like them much) I also discovered the Alexandrian.
Player-driven campaigns are so much more fun.
This is similar to something Brennan once said. "Railroad vs player agency is a false dichotomy. A good campaign is a railroad... made of rails and spikes that your players give you. "
It can be validly argued that as soon as a player sits down to play D&D with another human, they are in a railroad.
A railroad is just an adventure/campaign that follows an already decided path and gives little to no ability to deviate from it.
@@mkklassicmk3895 which is fine if the players are the one deciding the direction the track is being laid in. I honestly prefer to play and DM stuff I've prepared for than stuff improvised at random because the latter just won't have the same confidence or thought put into it.
@@ShasLaMontyr If the players are creating the track then it's not a railroad. A railroad implies the track is already set.
@@mkklassicmk3895 I think it matters more about how far ahead the track is set without the potential for deviation than if there's a track or not. I mentioned in an earier comment that my players decided on like 15 campaign goals (3 each) when doing their character back stories. So some major destinations on the journey of my campaign are known to me and I can start planning elements of them. The track between them all is not set though.
I like to have the track laid ahead up a certain distance because I want to have nice maps, minis prepared for the fights, some actual NPCs with something behind them. Why we're here though is all because of players wanting to be here, and I see it as my role as the DM to make where they want to go interesting to get to and interesting when they get there. Based on how what they decide up to where my prep ends will inform me on how to continue my prep, should it veer towards one thing or another.
I just don't like how Rail Roading as a term gets thrown around for not having every single session be an Improvised jumble of half thought out ideas as if that's going to be better.
The good is reactive evil is proactive line is something that was ingrained in me when I was younger, to the point that even when I ran an evil game I was like oh you guys are the driving force now not me and it was super fun. I eventually learned to include some of that stuff in my "regular" games too, And I love that you mentioned that too 🖤
It is super eye-opening to run an 'evil' game and see how different planning is!
When I ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, all villains were in play, and all of them were run by players. Considered one of my best games I ever ran because of how... reactive and proactive the Villains were. Tells me that great villains are both reactive and proactive. Downside to this side of play is... sometimes no good deed goes unpunished.
This trope comes from fantasy writers being fundamentally scared to challenge the status quo of society. Voldemort is threatening to start a wizard supremacist society, so Harry Potter defeats him and returns the world to a still wizard supremacist society, but slightly better. Superhero stories are also notoriously bad with this. The villain says that society is bad, and we should change it. The hero says no actually, let's keep society the way it is. And then the villain kills a bunch of innocent people, so now we can side with the hero to defeat the villain and return society to where it was.
Dystopian stories are great examples of stories where the heroes aren't afraid to challenge the status quo. I'm currently binging The Boys, and it's actually pretty great. It's a twist on superhero stories, where the superheroes are extremely corrupt and dangerous, and the main characters basically take on the roles of the "villains" to defeat the superhero corporation. It's essentially an "evil campaign," but where the protagonists aren't actually evil, they just occupy the roles that want to change the world and kill the superheroes.
i am a new dm and i can see this dynamic playing out in my own game. my players are chaotic and destructive and did away with heroism very quick. they have their own motivations and its making planning consequences really interesting. Its so fun.
5:58 Player Character Goals:
[1] Each player has multiple goals
[2] Short, mid-, long term
[3] Obviously measurable
[4] Consequences of Failure
[5] Should be Fun
7:39 Framework
Player-goal centric
Heirarchy (Factions)
No faction matters unless it intersects player goals
10:05 Encounter Design Checklist:
[1] Review Player goal
[2] Identify which faction(s) have overlap for
[3] ... and against
[4] Location
[5] Expected Conflicts
[6] Choose rewards
[7] Collect Materials
do not mix Players goals with his PCs goals
I have a remark that the first point in "7:39 Framework" does not emphasise *shaping the campaign around player goals* , but it emphasises that shaping the campaign around player goals *doesn't mean the PCs are the only ones with objectives* .
So instead of "Player-goal centric" I'd put somehow like "NPCs' and factions' objectives".
By the way, thank you very much for that recap, helps a lot!
This is really good advice to long-form campaigns! But for anyone interested in episodic campaigns or one shots, where PCs have less agency over their goals, consider giving your hero One Dramatic Question about their identity. Questions like “Will the hero’s faith in the aristocracy survive once they venture beyond the palace walls?” “Will the hero embrace or reject their complicated family legacy?” “Will the hero let go of their feelings of guilt and open their heart to a found family?” "Will the hero stop being a self-interested hustler and help out the plucky rebels?" are some common, tropey examples.
Using The One Dramatic Question gives you the following benefits:
-It is easy to demonstrate your character's answer to their One Dramatic Question changing over time, creating dynamic character arcs emergently.
-It is an effective roleplay lens, encouraging you to think about how you can "eek out" ways of demonstrating your PC's answer to their One Dramatic Question in various generic scenes without specifically needing to plan a scene about answering your One Dramatic Question.
-It is easy for other players to understand and pick up on. Deep psychological conflicts can be satisfying in books and films, but can be hard to roleplay in a way that other players can clock and meaningfully respond to. However, One Dramatic Question makes the most interesting part of your character extremely obvious and easy for other players to meaningfully interact with.
-Dramatic Questions are... well, dramatic. WILL the hero turn against the monarchy after seeing the plight of the commoner? WILL the hero take up the name of their evil father? WILL the hero break down and embrace their party members after a ferocious battle? WILL the hero sell out the resistance for a massive reward? The answer is *usually* that the PC will choose the heroic option, but the uncertainty as to what circumstances will prompt/inform their dramatic choice, alongside the vague possibility that they might *not* make the heroic choice is compelling drama.
Is this based on something? I need to save this somewhere.
Super interesting mechanic! It can feel unsatisfying making all these goals for a oneshot character, knowing that it's extremely unlikely that you'll ever see them come to fruition. This is a cool fix for that 🥰
@@pand1024 Kind of roundabout answer, but it's essentially a different way of thinking about the normal "Your character needs a goal!" and "You character needs to have wants vs. needs" advice you hear about writing books and screenplays. The TH-camr LocalScriptMan talks about it a lot, but it's more from a screenwriting perspective than a ttRPG one. Basically, his thesis is that stories are a vehicle for demonstrating character... the ways characters evolve, the ways they refuse to evolve, what makes them change their mind about something important, what makes them dig in harder... And that by focusing on goals, wants, needs, backstory, etc; you're kind of missing the forest for the trees when it comes to making a compelling character. What you *really* want is give your character A Big Dramatic Question about who they are, and then write scenes that challenge and inform their answer to that question, so at the end when they make The Biggest Most Dramatic Decision They Can Make, showing the climax of their journey, the audience understands why their ultimate decision is so meaningful. This is a vast oversimplification, but I highly recommend you check out his channel.
I just like it for ttRPGs because it helps me remember what the core of the character is really about, it makes it easy for me to communicate to my GM what kind of scenes would help explore this core conflict, and because it seems to be approachable for other players.
That last part about the vague possibility of not choosing heroic endings reminded me of Chutney and Santa Claus from CR.
This is great!
Yesssssss! That is exactly why people always say "D&D doesn't feel like when we were 13-14yo anymore!", and I'm convinced it's not just notalgia but because of big adventure modules setting the standard to reactive gaming for the players.
Several of the games I played in the 90s, the DM invented a reason why we were together, put us in a small town and ask "So what do you guys want to do?". We rolled STR, then DEX, then CON, etc., not even choosing which goes where. Once, I rolled very bad stats! I played a wizard anyway. I died at level 1 (!), and I rolled another dude, but because we had so much fun with my bad wizard for a couple of sessions, they became the Company of the Dead Wizard. This was a very awesome and satisfying game.
@@thomgizziz Where did I applied this to all people? I heard people state that it doesnt feel like before, and I put an hypothèse here. I am NOT assuming this is general feeling for all people on the planet...
we still do it that way... If I want pre-defined adventures, I either play classic The Dark Eye or computer games :D
I´d guess I haven´t played more than maybe 5 or 6 "bought" adventures in my entire 30 years of TTRPGs and those
were at the very beginning with Shadowrun 2.01. I have used one once myself to get a hang on the GM thing.
You've been here the whole time! The only way to learn is by playing, only way to win is by learning and the only way to begin is by beginning
Everybody do the Ginny Di-nis 💃🕺
The Gini-Dis is a dance
Everybody is a Ginny Di-nius!
Who knows it in advance!
I'M READY FOR A GAAAAME CHANGERRRRR
If there is one thing I know, it's that Ginny doesn't care if I buy this book.
😂😂 I wanted to be absolutely sure people knew so I appreciate this comment more than you know
I found it in a Barnes & Nobles, and I did NOT buy it lol I probably will sometime soon, but not yet!
While this seems like a fabulous idea, the hard part about it is *getting the players to be proactive.* I tried to get goals early on, and aside from one player's vengeance plot, everyone mostly abdicated goals to me anyway. Long-term or undefined goals.
And I can't really blame them too harshly. I've been on the other side of it. I just wanted to play my lizardman fisher lad and bonk things. He had no long term goals, and his short term was mostly about protecting his half-brother. There wasn't enough world or plot to hook into to make those variable-term goals. It was difficult to dredge up anything interesting without adopting a random roll table for additional context. Admittedly, that did make some "interesting" hooks, but it felt really forced.
Hey there! I agree, and with systems that aren’t already set up to encourage this kind of proactive mindset (like Blades in the Dark, Fate, Masks…), it’s much easier to work it into the session zero.
And your exact concern is in the book! Totally worth a read. 😁
That is exactly my problem. When I try to get players to think beyond “I want to be all-powerful” I get crickets.
ME: “But WHY does your sorcerer want to be all-powerful, and what does that even mean? What is his motivation?”
PLAYER: “What? I don’t know…he just wants to. Why does he need a reason?”
This book sounds great for players who are into story and RP. But some groups, like mine, just don’t get story. It’s a game to them, not a story-telling vehicle.
@@paulpostel8110 even in the context of it just being a game there are loads of player goals just within the bounds of accruing power that could be fun, like becoming a lich, gaining powerful allies, defeating a specific foe, or owning a castle. ultimately though if they just wanna hit things with a stick then level up, so be it. hit with stick fun.
I hear this a lot from other DMs and I definitely agree that this approach only works if your players are willing to put some thought and work into setting their own goals. You can't play a proactive character without being a proactive player.
If you really want to run a game like this, it has to start with a bit of tough love open communication 😅 I don't think players realize how demanding they're being of their DM until you sit them down and spell it out for them. Then, if they agree to be part of the game, they know what is expected of them.
@@GinnyDi Oh, they *DO* know how demanding it is. That's why none of them want to DM.
I’m a first-time DM but a long-time novelist who knew this in theory, but have been struggling to put it into practice. I keep putting plot hooks in front of them related to their goals, but haven’t been able to get them to really DO anything. Last session, I gave them a bulletin board and told them to try to put together all the information about the world that they know so far, and come up with a game plan. They gave me a whole list of goals and action items they want to do next session, and have said that they’re going to keep using it throughout the campaign as a communal notes section. It’s made prepping SO much easier!!
This is great advice, with one caveat: I was doing many of these things before I ended my campaign in frustration. Why? Because the players strongly resisted proactivity. It was like pulling teeth to get them to say what they wanted to do next, much less compose character goals. "Actionable goals - that sounds like what my boss asks me to do at work."
Yeah guys, creating goals IS work. Imagine how much harder it is for me to guess what your goals are when you won't tell me, or don't even know. The point of my whining is: This strategy (like almost everything in adventure games) won't work without player buy-in.
Players, please help your GMs out in this easy way. You'll all have more fun.
It sounds like you were dealing with "murder-hobos?" It takes some time to get a good crew together. Honestly, it's like forming a good band. Only, there's absolutely no potential of financial gain. Ever. 😅
Yeah this just isn't what DnD players are interested in in my experience. Last time I tried running a game, the players repeatedly signaled they just wanted me to give them a linear plot to follow, everytime I tried asking what they were interested in pursuing.
I have seen posts from DnD players that say they have tried other games and come back to DnD because they just want to be reactive without having to engage on a deeper level.
@@Puzzles-Pinslazy players! Refuse to run D&D and find players willing to share the work a bit! 😂
My most memorable campaign was where the players started out with a "classic D&D" style (reactive players). And then one player saw they chose "brewing" as proficiency (AD&D2), and asked me if they could use that to create new beers. I said "yes". Then the campaign changed to where the party created new beers and tried to license them to breweries. Each session was encounters to ingratiate the party to stubborn breweries, to "handle" rivals, to keep their distribution network safe, etc. Instead of getting money from treasures the characters got money from the breweries, which sold their beers.
I remember hearing about a story like this in a Reddit comment years ago and was thinking of it halfway through the video. It may have been your story!
Our current Firefly rpg game a large part of it is us brewing vodka on an abandoned base we found on an asteroid. GM never saw it coming but rolled with it wonderfully.
This sounds great and it's exactly what improvising the game on players goals is like.😃
Such a great example of organic plot generation.
The thing is this kind of experience isn't going to attract millions of viewers like on critical role or dimension 20. That's because those experiences are geared towards passive audiences.
And yet it's what most people are using is their inspiration for how they play D&D. No wonder no one is asking their players to be proactive.
I think this is an excellent approach to a certain way of running D&D, so long as the group is set on running D&D that way.
Players who approach D&D because they want to be the protagonists of a heroic story may love being given the reigns of a table driven by proactive roleplaying and clearer guidelines on how to take part in it.
Players who approach D&D because they want to explore the unknown and overcome diegetic challenges may feel less rewarded by overcoming an obstacle when they put it there themselves
DMs who approach D&D because they want to enable their friends' epic story may love the relief of proactive roleplaying causing no effort to go to waste and granting the confidence that they're doing what their players want.
DMs who approach D&D because they want to engage in worldbuilding, storytelling, and challenge designing may feel underappreciated when their role is relegated to serving as the facilitator of the players' ideas of worldbuilding, storytelling, and challenge designing rather than their own.
My theory of these differing approaches is that D&D experiences exist on a spectrum between "D&D is improvising a heroic storytelling experience" and "D&D is playing a game of simulated adventuring".
On the "story" side, players are more likely to use framings like "the plot", "the story", "the main characters / protagonists", "character motivations", "the spotlight", "scenes", "narrative milestones", etc. From that perspective, it is highly beneficial to look to theatre, improv, literature, and live performance in general to seek ways to improve. Characters being able to proactively direct the game using their motivations makes sense. Improv isn't about following a script, it's about listening to each other and taking it upon yourself to introduce new ideas.
On the "game" side, players are more likely to use framings like "the dungeon", "exploration nodes", "player roles", "resource management", "procedures", "resolution mechanics", "[hex/point/path/city/dungeon] crawl", "random tables", "experience point value", etc. From that perspective, it is highly beneficial to look to board games, video games, and game theory in general to seek ways to improve. Players being able to alter the direction of the game based on what their game token _wants_ might not make sense from this perspective.
I would like to see more discussion and clearer distinction around the differences between these approaches to D&D, as I think it would allow for better improvement on both ends. Having a better idea of what is/isn't important to the game based on how you play is what leads to great insights like the ones Ginny shares here for "story" games.
I appreciate the way you're framing this concept. It reminds me of several tables I've sat at. Worst-case scenarios: half your players are "story" oriented and half are "game" oriented OR your GM leans one way and the players lean the other way.
Great take on this matter! I was about to write the same thing in response to Ginny seeing "no downsides" to the approach specified in the video.
I'd ask, what about *DM* agency? If the only stories that matter were the ones told by the players, where's the fun for the DM? I'm a storyteller and worldbuilder at heart, which made me fall in love with D&D in the first place. I *really* don't mind prepping factions or locations that my players might never meet - I get my kicks from creating a cohesive world with rich lore.
That doesn't negate player agency, it just sets certain boundaries for them - which my players really appreciate, I've been told. Without my framework, we would have a party consisting of Farty McJokester, Mary Sue Powerz and Just Some Guy. 😅 The magic happens when we tell the story *together*.
@@samihietanen2605 I am the kind of GM that loves listening to the players, following their lead. I prep very little (or nothing) and improvise heavily. Basically this hobby did not «click» for me until I stepped away from D&D and GMed Blades in the Dark. I love how this hobby supports so many different takes on it. It complicates opinions and tips about GMing though because they always come with the (unspoken) asterix «this is not guaranteed to work for you or your table though»
@@samihietanen2605 I don't see it as an either/or thing. In creating factions, the DM has the agency to set up their story by creating factions with opposing goals and motivations. Then those factions go about pursuing their goals, while the players pursue theirs. This creates the conditions for the story to actually play out at the table, where everyone- DM included- discover what the story is together as they play.
Yeah, the strategy outlined in the video only works-as a sole strategy-with the right players and GM :) I know I'd never have been able to run a game entirely that way, because 90% of the guys I used to game with (I've since moved country and haven't got a new group together) struggled to even give me a motivation for why the character was an adventurer (the worst would always be "I'm adventuring to FiNd MySeLf..."). Or they'll give me a backstory, and then totally forget about it by the end of session 2 (and even ignore stuff that was added in for them) because their characters motivations have already changed and they just haven't noticed.
Despite sometimes making my job very difficult, I like my friends too much to try to force them to give me constant goal updates ;)
I remember ages ago, Wizard magazine did a special issue on villains of comics, and there was a whole ass essay on the issues about comics being the same villains act, heroes react thing.
It pointed out that it's actually the opposite in most old legends.
Gilgamesh wants immortality. Odysseus just wants to get home.Orpheus wants Eurydice to live again.
In the oldest tales, heroes were the ones with the goal, and villains were the ones who somehow prevented that goal.
I suppose in that case, “acting” or “reacting” depends on where you start the story. Is Orpheus being active because he pursues Eurydice, or is he being reactive because he is reacting to her death?
@@notthephonz True, but I'd say "acting" and "reacting" in this case means more who has the main motivation for the story. Or maybe "Whose actions drive the story forward" is the "actor"
Yeah ,Orpheus is reacting to her death, but her death wasn't some plot by Hades, it's just she stepped on a viper and it bit her.
Orpheus is the one who decides to, and undertakes the quest to, bring her back to life.
Even in a story where the actions do all start because of an antagonist, like the Labors Of Hercules. It's more about "Herc must accomplish these tasks for his concept of atonement" not "Hera did this to hurt Herc"
When you see it written out like that, it feels so obvious but I never realized! That's a great reference point to work from 🥰
It was largely as a result of a different world, where "the norm" was harsh wilderness and struggling to survive. But it's difficult to say "most." Labors of Heracles, the Trojan War, Beowulf, the Ramayana (and Mahabharata), the Tain bo Cualinge, etc. there are just as many high profile ancient stories where the hero is reacting to an outside force that changes the normal living state.
I think that's at least partially because myth tends to be about "How did we get to this point?" which means the world was one way, and someone made an effort to change it to be another way.
RPGs often rely on a pre-existing setting, and there's a vested interest in keeping that setting more or less as is (because doing otherwise is making parts of the older material less useful). That's why published adventures often deal with averting changes to the status quo, or at least minimizing those changes and making them go your way.
A simple way to make a Proactive GM-Reactive Player game a little more even is: Resources! If the party has rations and water, that can become an issue. If they have a vehicle, that can become damaged! If they have items which are useful to them, they can break as well, or become lost or stolen! This allows you to be proactive as a DM, but in a way that genuinely receives a reaction from your players. It’s been cool so far in my sailing Campaign
If you have players who enjoy resource management, it is good idea. Although after long day of running around managing your own IRL stuff, some might want to skip this part.
I think that would only work in certain types of campaigns. If I'm playing something that has a heroic style I don't want to be micromanaging stuff. It's like counting ammo in an action movie, you don't because it kills the mood.
yeah, i love this kind of thing as its the nitty gritty that gives me stakes to work with and concequences to my actions. My players hate the idea of even tracking their inventory or figuring out how to carry a heavy thing because it doesnt sound like fun
I just kinda chuckled to myself as one I am old enough to have played chainmail, I had the red and blue book, owned a set of blue exploding dice filled in with white crayone and know what THACO means. When I finally got into DMing I started with warhammer fantasy where there was no reason to or not to do anything except for selfish reasons for the player characters. sometimes my players were the hero, sometime the villain and sometimes they were neither. It was up to me to keep a living world going and not force the players down a certain path. it is weird how far we have come in gaming and how much has been forgotten.
I have passed the GM mantle on to my daughter and told her to all about this channel. I kibitz with her to help her keep her session enjoyable. Thank you for this resource, keep dem dice rolling and remember "If stupidity got you into this situation maybe stupidity can get you out."
Yup! I'm with you, brother.
"Redistributing the creative load" I think is a great way to encapsulate this approach.
I burnt out more than once running campaigns, and I subscribe to a "less is more" approach when it comes to game prep.
Most recently, I've been running a World of Darkness game where my PCs keep finding these news articles that are actually summaries of one shots I've run over the last 20 years. Anytime they want to "follow up" on these articles, I just imagine what the place looks like 20 years later and run with it. It's super fun because it puts them in the driver's seat as to what leads they want to investigate and I inject the story regardless of what lead they end up following.
WOD. is a amazing game. What city is your campaign in?
@@juriaan13 I come from Ottawa, Canada, so I've been homebrewing my own Ottawa setting since 2008.
You might need to couple it with some mandatory inter-character connections otherwise players will wind up pulling in some different directions (everyone knows the trope of the adventuring party that just all coincidentally shows up at the same tavern, has exactly zero in common or to connect them, but still has to somehow be an adventuring party because that's who the players created). In the RPG Spire, every class has a set of "Bonds" that they start with - a connection to an NPC, and a connection to one other PC.
For example the Bound (a rogue-type class) starts with a bond to an individual "member of the downtrodden underclass" in the city that the game is set - an NPC who the player has to give a name, and also name a thing that's most important to that NPC. Additionally they need to have a bond with another PC who rescued them from a dangerous situation, which the player also has to describe.
A Knight (actually more of a sword-wielding tavern gang member, but who's legally allowed to carry a sword) starts with a squire NPC who they have to name, and identify whether they're idealistic or cynical about being a knight, and a PC they regularly go drinking with, and the player has to describe the wildest things they got up to on one of their legendary nights out.
That kind of setup means that the character already exists in a context that is relevant to the game at hand, and the other characters in the group. So when they start articulating their goals, other PCs are likely to factor into those goals, and there are NPCs likely already involved in those goals too.
Zee Bashew has a video called "How I GM" that lays out a simple way to do this. It also contains references to the sources that inspired him to create that method. Basically, he comes up with some prompts that help the players make up party dynamics and a party backstory on the spot.
Totally agree.
I'll always encourage players to give their characters connections to other party members because it just makes rp so much more interesting and multi-layered.
But you're right - in this style of game it REALLY helps to lower the chance that you create a round robin of character goal arcs 😂
@@GinnyDi Does the book have guidelines around this at all? Like, is there mention of having shared party-wide goals? It probably wouldn't be too hard to add, but I am curious if the authors thought about this. Thanks for the video! I'd never thought about running a game like this, but now it's all I want to do!
@@trimagnus I'd look into some of the Powered by The Apocalypse games. Those games run entirely on character bonds, goals, and outlooks. And there is a lot there that you can reverse into any system.
I dont consider this a problem. If the party splits roll up new characters. It's a natura ending
I have it! Great book. My best friend (and DM) and I were talking about it the other day. As an author, I can say that it reflects the way we think when giving our protagonists agency in their stories.
I love that!
When I run games, I exclusively tie exp to character goals and other more generic goals like "make a powerful enemy/ally" or "Gain the admiration of a community" or a goal of uncovering a broader mystery of the campaign.
It always keeps the players motivated to affect the world, and in the last case, engage in the world's lore.
I’ve tried to run a game like this a few years ago. It was exhausting, since I never knew what to work on at any given time every session was a scramble. I shut the whole thing down about ten sessions in because I was starting to burn out on ttrpgs as a whole because I felt like I couldn’t reliably prep anything more than a week or two ahead of time. A scramble session happens often enough in normal play, but it’s the exception rather than the rule.
I think you could use the long-term and medium-term goals to circumvent this issue. You can do a lot more prep ahead of time for longer-term goals and that can be what you fall back on when you don't have stuff for shorter-term goals prepped yet.
Ultimately though, players will always find ways to surprise you, and as such flexibility and improvisation are pretty vital DM skills. It's certainly easier for some people than others, and I suspect once I get my opportunity to run a campaign it'll be a great hurdle for me.
@@waapfu that’s the problem, when the players are being reactive, you don’t know what they’re going to do, but you have a touch point. You’ve reduced it from infinite possibilities to a still large, but manageable number of large scale decisions and can improvise the small scale things. I may not know how they’re getting to the lair, but I was able to put together the dungeon over several months. If they’re the thing that’s driving everything, then I can’t really plan anything more than a session or two in advance.
@@Veelofar I did. This will probably sound bizarre, but there are three types of prepared game material (to my current understanding). In order of most concrete to most improvised they are:
1. Prep. The game material content you have from the adventure you bought or wrote. Traditional (trad) styles of D&D often lean heavily into the prep category.
2. Procedure. The rule systems, generative tables, hexcrawls, timelines, random encounters, and small pieces of modular content you make or buy to slot into the gaps around your prep. Simulationism emerges if you do a lot of procedural content.
3. Patch. The mostly-improvised rulings, informed judgements, spontaneous names or dialogues, and quickly imagined bits of content. These are best when they reinforce the world, or the atmosphere, or the pacing, and when they make sense (verisimilitude is a popular word). The patch category is popular with actor types and folks who intimately understand thier worldbuilding enough to riff off it.
Anyhow, my point is that most people don't build out the proper tools for strong procedural or patch related content in order to run a broader world. It takes a little bit of time, but the Gygax75 challenge covers most of it in a hexcrawl, which systematizes your game into modular chunks so you can always drop in new content or use longer term plans. It's flexible and undemanding. I remember feeling worried and scrambling to change directions early on, but I got used to using procedural and patched details to steer players toward my prepared content, or simply generating enough content to entertain everyone for sessions on end. Most of the work for my campaign was done years ago, over the course of a month or two. I highly reccomend the gygax75 or something like it.
It's also important to note that I strongly perfer buying adventures that I can run with little to no prior reading. Adventures that are so easy to use because they have incredible editing and formatting. It requires reading reviews and hunting for the right kinds of adventures, but it means I have a collection of prepared adventures to operate a functional open world.
I don't necessarily reccomend open world campaign structures to start with. But I do reccomend giving more modular types of content a try.
@@Veelofar if you need to plan out every detail and do so a long time in advance then you're best off running a linear adventure, which while not to my personal taste is a perfectly fine way to run a game. the more agency players are given, the more you're gonna have to improvise.
things can be made a little more predictable by doing things like requesting that players tell you what they plan to do next session, but that only does so much.
This book changed my thinking as a dm and how I prepare. I honestly enjoy dming so much more than before and I feel that my gameplay is more immersive. Getting my players to fully commit has been the hardest part. Also, love your shirt!
I fully sympathise! I have an amazing group now but I've definitely experienced players who aren't happy to commit or put extra work in. Glad you enjoyed it though!
DM Hack: At the end of my game sessions I ask the group what they want to do during next session. I now know exactly what to prepare.
This simple question saves me hours of prep time.
There are certain kinds of players who just want to ‘play a game’ and come in with much less investment in preparing their character. These kinds of players tend to handwave the ‘bonds and flaws’ section on their character sheet. These types of players WILL see the idea of coming up with their own goals and plot hooks as extra work they may not want to do.
And that’s okay! This kind of tool only works with heavy player buy in. And it probably doesn’t work for every table.
From a DM side, I don’t see it as less work for me. In fact, if my players don’t all collaborate on how their goals can be met together I may have to deliver on multiple plot hooks (a dragon and fishing tournament) rather than one hook for all of them at once (a dungeon with monsters in it that have the gold they all need).
That said: this is a good and refreshing way to make games! But I don’t think it’s the silver bullet you describe it as. Great vid Ginny!
Edit: also how will the players know the world or their character before playing the game? This seems like a huge amount of work in session 0 and 1. Again: sounds fun! Just not LESS tricky than regular villain focused campaigns.
"My character wants to slay the dragon that burned down their village", "My character wants to become filthy rich and retire in a castle", "My character wants to become a knight and serve the realm" all gives the GM stuff to incorporate into the setting without the players requiring massive amounts of foreknowledge. The GM is then free to create factions or NPCs tied to these goals, as allies and villains, to help put a face to the setting at large. As the game progresses and more of the world becomes known to their players their characters are free to gain new goals, which can be spun on further. This is a core part of games in the Powered by the Apocalypse system, for example, and the way it helps off-load the GM is by putting down constraints and direct the flow of creativity.
other games - such as traveller, have this mechanic baked into the game. This mechanic was also easer to see within D and D in the late 70's and 80's when people played "scenarios". Different scenarios offered different things to players and characters. Choosing which scenario to play next encouraged players to think about what they and their characters wanted out of the game and to go looking for it.
This reminds me a lot of the O-G-A-S system Guy Sclanders ("How To Be a Great GM") created to make NPCs "self-running." Occupation, Goal, Attitude, Stakes. The thing I can't believe I never figured out is, how applicable that system is to PCs as well, especially when you build it out this way.
It also reminds me of how Austin Funk and Johnny Chiodini use the heroes' backstories (or lack thereof) as plot hooks. They run, respectively, Rolling With Difficulty and the Oxventure.
It's important to acknowledge that this kind of thing does happen on its own, either through accident or design, but this book sounds like a really helpful resource!
I also thought of that when she briefly mentioned creating NPCs on the fly with their own motivation - especially since I've been using OGAS for a while now and it really helped me to focus on what my NPCs would do instead of who they "are".
The OGAS system has been a game changer for my prep, definitely recommend checking it out
I have to say, I'm incredibly sceptical. I've tried very player driven campaigns twice. The first one fell apart really fast and the second is ongoing, but early on. The reason the first one fell apart *because* the players wanted to be spoonfed the plot. What's been true for both is that it's been way more work on my part. Because I, the DM, have to be reactive. Especially for my prep style. I like to do heavy work up front, 20+ hours the week before the campaign, and just review my notes before each session. Every gee months I update my plan. With pc driven campaigns I'm instead consistently doing 3+ hours every week which is much harder for me.
None of that is to say you shouldn't try it out. Im but trying to tear anyone down or start an agrument. But I don't think it's the golden goose it's presented as.
100% this. I couldnt agree with the theory more and would love to put it in action, but my table would literally not know what to do (even though they are always highly engaged). They want to be fed hooks not come up with hooks themselves 😢
I have a document I give players to create a backstory.
Mentor/teacher
Friend/ally
Rival
Enemy
Goal/Motivation
A word or short paragraph for each item.
Heard! All I can ever speak to is my own experience and my own perspective - and for me, prepping more broadly without letting player choices guide my focus was much, much more stressful and time consuming for me. So far, using this model, my prep workload has decreased. But everybody is different!
For me, player driven campaigns are all up front work and very little between sessions. Because "writing the campaign" is basically just the faction stuff mentioned in this video. You prepare the state of the world before the players intervene (particularly deciding who the major players are, what they want, and what resources they have access to to accomplish it). And that informs your response to what the players decide to do so it's more like you're playing characters of your own than writing an adventure. Prep time becomes minimal.
@@michaeldunkerton3805 it depends upon the other options. Some create a module for the players or even a campaign setting before the first session. Player driven games are about reacting to player choices.
The nice thing about buying a module is having some one else doing some prep
This system is exactly like SMART goals in business. This type of goal setting has been around for decades. In my experience, most employees and managers actively dislike annual goal setting. I also remember buying a book about a decade ago that included short-, medium-, and long-term goal setting exercises for your personal life. It was incredibly difficult to create those goals beyond the extreme short term (i.e. the next week) and the extreme long-term (i.e. some life change years from now). I can't imagine putting in the effort for a D&D character who is just setting out in life. Have you tried asking a recent college grad what their short-, medium-, and long-term goals are? Are they specific and measurable? What are the first steps to achieving those goals? They don't know. Now add in the concept that the GM may have created the world so you may not even know all the options available to you. I'm not trying to negate this approach - just pointing out that this process may not be as slam-dunk for a lot of people as you make it sound.
@annereynolds7930 This is exactly what I was thinking. I despise SMART Goals at work, and I have no intention of incorporating them into my game. D&D is really a simple game at its core, IMHO.
This. I came here to say this!
The common negative gut reaction to this kind of format is a really good point. This shouldn't be as hard as real-life goal planning because it's a game you're playing for fun and you ideally can just change your mind later, but the format doesn't get that across.
I think framing it as making a list of things that you think would be fun to do could be a way of removing pressure from the decisions, but what works for what players is always gonna vary.
So, i've played in a game where we were given agency. And i found it very unenjoyable. I constanrly felt lost and not sure what to do next as none of my goals seemed to fit. Its not for everyone but that's not a bad thing. Everyone's table is different.
But saying it has no downsides just isn't the case, which is a shame as I feel like Ginny didn't give this the consideration she normally does.
As someone who also hates these goals at work I think there is a really important difference. The players can co-create the world of the GM is willing, and I think they have to be for this to really work.
If I want my character to overthrow the evil ruler who stole my family's lands, I don't have to worry if this is an option, I tell the GM we discuss it and now there is an evil ruler who stole my family's lands.
If you establish strong preexisting relationships between the PCs you also get a bunch of goals by proxy. Maybe your PC is the childhood friend of the guy who wants to overthrow the evil ruler so now you have that goal to do that too, or maybe just to try and keep him alive while he tries.
You need to do a lot of coordination up front to make sure the party isnt pulled apart but players goals can inspire each other and help those having a harder time.
SMART goals usually suck because someone just sticks a form in front of you and tells you to fill it in and then everyone ignores it. This needs to be an interactive group process.
Of course if most or none of the group are on board it's not going to be a good approach.
I actually bought this book about six months ago and discussed it with my DM. We play a one-player-one-DM campaign, so I (as a player) decided to use these ideas with him as the DM. We have played several sessions so far, and it is wonderful. At the end of each session, I outline my plans for the next session, and he only has to design the encounters for that session, not the entire city I am exploring. Of course, he uses his extra prep time to flesh out those parts of the city that I MAY explore down the line, but the burden is on ME, the player. We both seriously LOVE this system. It is a gamechanger for us as well. Thanks for your video.
I've run a game with a very light version of a similar system. Every PC has a "big dream" that they can pursue. Actively taking steps and making risks/sacrifices to reach that big dreams is one of the ways they gain experience, making it something worthwhile to work towards.
Having both short-term and long-term goals and dreams sounds like a great way to keep investing in ones character, and definitely something I try and bring to new games.
And will definitely look into getting this book, thanks for the recommendation.
In Warhammer Fantasy roleplay there is a game mechanic where players get XP by completing self set goals. Big rewards for big overarching Goals like opening up your own tavern etc and for short term goals which can be one two a few sessions long. So completing personal goals literally equally higher stats (since you increase stats with XP directly on that system not level up like in DnD)
When long time DMs play characters, I've noticed that they do this pretty instinctually. Brand new players can struggle with having this amount of agency. I think this advice is particularly important when you are playing with established players who have never GMed and therefore don't think of this sort of thing themselves but are happy to do it.
Thanks for the video! Some of what you are describing is the Old School sandbox play style that us old timers have been using since 1974 when we started. Gameplay begets story, story is a byproduct of gameplay, players decide what they will do, the DM let's them know the consequences (often with the random help of the dice), rinse and repeat.
The following contradicts what you have said. NPCs do not exist in a vacuum, they have their plans and if the PCs do NOT intersect with them, their plans come to fruition. These plans can spur bigger plans. This is how a campaign can scale with the PCs as they level up. The DM doesn't need to play it all out in real time. The DM just needs to decide what is happening in other parts of the world and flesh things out as the PCs' goals and plans scale up. The DM doesn't need to populate the whole world but making sure there are some important NPCs in various places helps it feel like there are people everywhere with goals and desires and lives apart from the PCs.
Such a great and succinct distillation of the core concepts of the book. So glad people are getting the word out about it, I have been positively effusive since I first picked it up!
I mean, so many GM advice columns say "Don't prep plots, make the game about the PCs!" But often don't go far enough in giving concrete advice on how to actually do that. But this book does. It's clear, concise and really represents how we can all have a better, more fulfilling time at the game table.
Nice one, Ginny!
I feel like this will only work well for very specific tables and players. Heroes are almost by definition reactive; the Joseph Campbell type Hero's Journey literally starts with a call to adventure as its first step, and most heroic stories are set up in this way. Often a hero who has a goal of something like "gain more power" is if anything more likely to be an anti-hero or a tragic hero, which is fine if that's what you're going for, but not everyone is into playing that type of character. My experience is that most players don't actually want a wide open sandbox where they can do anything they want and it's up to them to come up with their own motivation.
Big aha moment for me: Not every PC needs to start the campaign on the Hero's Journey. In other words, there doesn't need to be a triggering event for every character to become an adventurer/hero/villain right at the beginning. That's the "tragic backstory" fallacy. Some PCs can start adventuring for the simple reason of wanting to see more of the world, support a friend, etc. The trigger for their Heroic Journey can arrive via gameplay. So goals can be very broad and vague at the beginning. In that case, though, the GM would need to understand a character's motivations/morals/values are in order to provide them with that initial push onto the path of the Hero's Journey.
Interestingly, I found Curse of Strahd to fit pretty well with this approach. As a sandbox, the campaign (as I ran it) was largely driven by the players' goals--to find X, to figure out Y, etc. Strahd was definitely A Presence, but he didn't come directly into conflict with the players until the players' goals came into conflict with him. As a result, the conflict felt natural, and the victory all the more cathartic.
This is to say, this approach can definitely be at least somewhat incorporated into published adventures as well. Though some take more work than others to figure out how to use the adventure while also letting the players and their goals guide the story.
I literally heard you say the title of this book, and ordered it. You’ve proven you have good taste in this sort of thing, and this sounds like exactly what I’ve been wanting to focus on
Oh wow! I appreciate the faith - but I'm sure you'll enjoy it
Strongly agree with having a lot of faith in Ginny's recommendations after I picked up Tome of Heroes from Kobold Press! 😁
You're in for a treat. This book is truly great and well-written.
I have a homebrew game in which i didnt really plan out anything but the starting village. I just react to what the party does and have some small hooks that i may want to play out at some point if it fits the current narrative. But what actually happens is all my players. If they decide "we dont care about any quest, lets talk to the townfolk and see if they need some help" or whatever in that sense, i may just put some spy near the smithy that they might be able to spot at some point. Its so much fun compared to the hard wired campaign i dmed with another group.
Now i think the major plot hooks can be a good orientation on what should happen at some point, but i dont want to set them in stone anymore. it puts so much pressure on my memory and organization to not forget anything
I've ran 2 campaigns in a similar fashion. No idea where it would go until the party was about level 5-6 and by then the players had desires and goals for their characters. Then I could craft a plot and a true BBEG.
Similar. Had a group of one shots that melded into a campaign as the player group gelled, and all the sessions started from a single town. By the time we made it official, there was a bad guy over the horizon...
This book sounds like another variant of sandbox/open world play. Make up elements of the world, detail as PCs find things.
The proactive game is likely to involve adventures that are more morally ambiguous. Clearing the area around my stronghold? How? Of which existing inhabitants? Finding the legendary artifact? How many Neutral (or even Good) opponents are you prepared to go through just to get it? Then there are the consequences - what happens when the PCs stir up evil that was just quietly there before? The players will need a certain maturity to handle these type of challenges.
I think the level of moral ambiguity is a good thing to discuss in a Session Zero regardless of play style. If a group wants more proactive gameplay but really doesn't want to be mulling over the morals of a situation, it could be better to be a bit unrealistic about what NPCs stand between players and their goals, or just flat-out say "That doesn't seem like a good idea for this game because of x implications. What about this, instead?"
This is some of the best adventure design advice out there, which makes it unfortunate that the traditions of D&D published adventures kind of sabotage it...
Because D&D adventures have to assume that the PCs will be any adventure that a player creates independently of the campaign, they have to be written with the PCs as a basically random adventuring party. In other words, they have to write a story without a main character, and with a plot that can motivate any random adventuring party. So that's why pretty much every published adventure is "stop the BBEG from gaining the power to destroy the world."
I think the best way to use the advice in the book and this video is to design campaigns where the players and GM come up with a shared party goal at the beginning of the campaign, and then design the campaign around accomplishing that goal. Basically, make them all have a shared element of their backstory, and then make the campaign about resolving that backstory. Chains of Asmodeus basically does that and it's awesome.
In fact, I plan on this being one of the topics of one of my first videos and little adventure modules!
Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica embraced this approach. But it's widely dismissed because it's connected to MTG.
I haven't read the book, so I don't know whether this aspect is covered therein. But I would note that this approach to proactive PC play is exponentially empowered by the extent to which the players understand the world of the campaign, on a detailed level. One of the basic epistemological reasons why campaigns fall into reactive play by default is that the players only know (only can know) what the DM tells them about the world. There's an inherent imbalance of available information which must be overcome if true player agency is to arise. Therefore, while I wholeheartedly agree with Ginny's advice in this video, I dispute the contention that it will save time for DMs -- we must invest many hours into describing our campaign settings and communicating them to our players. Knowledge is power (cue rainbow star, "The More You Know").
During session 0 I like to ask the players to define at least one shared goal or motivation for all their characters, one personal goal they share with another PC and optionally one goal in whitch their character is in opposition to another PC. This sets up cohesion and tension from the start.
My favorite DM has a hybrid style that is basically he presents a campaign ARC and we players give personal arcs at character creation and party goals at session 0. This then sets up the timelines for what might happen.
Basically what I'm doing with my players rn, I think it works well
This is why that system of Zee Bashews seems cool. Have players write out adventure types, good/bad encounters etc and shuffle them in a bowl, then select at random. Not tried it yet but this seems like a way to connect to that mechanic
Ooh! I'll definitely have to try this out - sounds fun
@@GinnyDi it's one of his oldest videos , 2018, I think- "How I DM"
@@phoenixdzk This is actually a really creative concept for changing up session’s! - Thanks for sharing! (:
@9HPRuneScape oh yeah got Bashew to thank for that. I use a ton of his mechanics, including a tetris-slot fill style system to deal with player inventory & encumbrance
@@phoenixdzk Oooo! Now that’s a creative way to manage inventory space! 🙌
I like it best if goals emerge from gameplay interactions. My latest group was often worried they "messed up my plot", so I kept reassuring them that there is no plot. They are loving the story, though, which is great as most of it comes from where they take it.
Let me just say, your timing is impeccable. I wanted to talk with my friend and DM of our campaign about this, because, especially recently, he is very much only furthering the main plot and I do not dare use the "R" word here. Every session we are presented with new and even more extreme and urgent problems to solve and the mountain gets ever only higher. We had plot hooks and even characters from our characters backstories that just died on a whim because of this, severing threads of every possibility to go along our plots. We are constantly loosing by chasing a newer, more urgent problem and evil and it starts to suck. You just put a lot of my problems with the campaign into words, so I can talk about this with him.
This is actually what I needed to run a great Rogue Trader game. Rogue Traders and their retinues are quite free, they have a ship, it's so hard to force them to react to something. "Oh a dangerous Chaos Cult... exterminate the planet!" Problem. Solved. This proactive approach is great for such free games.
So, I've been playing Owlcat's Rogue Trader CRPG and there are some lovely plot elements around Rogue Traders trying to control territory.
To seal the deal to get feality from a starving trade station I needed shipments from my agricultural world, which had been cut off by warp shifts. Reopened warp path and discovered they couldn't ship anything due to a raging rebellion.
Investigation revealed the uprising had been fomented by xenos who had originally engineered the world's biosphere, but the Governor seemed suspicious, too - found out she had turned to Chaos cultists to get the power to put down the uprising.
In the end, xenos took my deal to end rebellion in exchange for keeping their colonies at specific ruins and were given free license to hunt down cultists. Governor I executed and replaced with a competent crime family I had indirectly stolen the business of earlier - under the circumstances they were more than grateful for the opportunity to move up in the world.
That all could have gone very differently, lots of interesting choices.
It's great to see how hyped you are for this idea, Ginny!
Unfortunately, this is one of those things that sound GREAT to the GM, but players will generally reject it. Asking players to state a concrete goal is already a tall ask for many players. Most people I play with will be perfectly content doing some monster-killing jobs, leveling up and finding loot. Or they may have some general thing driving them like "I wanna see the Feywild!" or "I wanna become a powerful sorcerer!". Asking them to make those goals fullfill several tough criteria IS a lot to ask of them. And then when they reach their goal, they need to immediately come up with a new valid goal somehow...
Even as a DM, it's not going to be low-prep smooth sailing either. When the PCs goals are...
o) collect dragon teeth
o) grow a brewery business
o) bring the corrupt governor to justice
o) become pirate king by sinking rival pirate ships
o) complete a pilgrimage to mount Bergenstein
... then as a DM you'd have to go, "No wait, ALL of your goals need to align and they all should also go against the goals of these (evil) organisations", then the supposed player freedom is out the window again and we are basiclaly "back to normal".
I truly wish this would be the holy grail you make it out to be, but I'm afraid it won't survive contact with (most) actual players.
It's nice to see this style of GM'ing from PbtA games (Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, etc.) being imported into DnD, finally. It's very much about letting the players define the world and building up adventure fronts based on what players and player characters tell the GM.
Pretending like this is a PbtA thing is really insulting lol This stuff is all the basics for running any TTRPG. I'm sorry that you have all just had very bad groups.
A formula i like to use in my games; opening mini adventure establishes setti g and give players a chance to feel out their character. Half develop 5 to 9 plot hooks, see which ones the players grab. Discard all but one missed plot hook, have one of the discsrded plot hooks develop in fhe background until its nog ignorable, but let the players purue the other ones too. The main villain will either be one of the ones they seized immediately, or the one the persisted, but i wait and see which way they go.
ya know, I always tried to run games this way, and it has saddly been pushed away by the dominantly produced content. I will absolutely be buying this book and thank you for bringing this to so many peoples attention.
Ravnica is a good fit for this style. The various factions the players join drive stories and determine enemies.
What timing! I actually picked up this book at my local bookstore a couple weeks back and have been raving about it to anyone who will listen. Wasn't sure I could convince my players to read the entire thing, but maybe they'll be convinced to watch a 13 minute video. Thanks Ginny!
This video goes directly to my references for the next campaign I am preparing to run !
Even though I've been GM'ing for much of my life, I'm always happy to learn and improve. This material is gold.
The general gist im getting is that integrating the characters motivations/backstories/etc into the plot is a good thing, which for me seems like good baseline advice. One thing I ask every player every session zero is: "why is so and so an adventurer and not something else?" The reluctant hero stuff makes little sense when class features show up level 1. Then, once I have the motivation, fleshing out backstory is easier. Once motivation and backstory are clear, then brainstorming goals in the setting is easier. A nomadic dwarf sorcerer is obsessed with the stars? The stars positions are different at the parties entrance into the new setting. The player may not have specifically set the goal of finding out why the stars are different here, but that character trait leads to plot related goals directly tied to their background. I also keep a session zero type communication going throughout campaigns to check in and update motivations and the why of it all.
I am really glad to see this channel gained a lot of wisdom in the last months.
The structure you proposed, is a character based campaign.
Here some instructions on how to start one:
[Character based campaign session 0]:
1) The DM describes the setting characteristics (named the "6 truth of the World" in the "Return of the Lazy DM" book).
2) Only after* the Players creates characters linking them between each others and the setting.
3) Only after** the DM comes up with a campaign, based on characters backgrounds and possible development arcs, and NPCs
*It is ok for player to have some ideas, but they shouldn't flesh out the character independently on the settings and other characters, otherwise the PC will be disconnected from the setting and the other PCs.
**It is ok for the DM to have some campaign ideas, but he shouldn't have a plot in mind before the PC are created, otherwise the plot will end up be disconnected from the PC interests.
This means to abandon the "my campaign" mindset to welcome "their campaign" mindset.
There is no plot. The PC arcs are the plot, and the event of the settings/NPCs are influencing and engaging them from the background.
To me, this is the highest way you can play this game, and something which cannot be replicated (for example in videogames). To be clear, every official campaign, isn't a character based campaign, since can be completed by any character, independently who they are. This is impossible in a character based campaign.
Example: Dad and daughter are searching mom (which is a crucial setting's NPC) together with friends. This campaign can't be played by other characters.
It seems really obvious when read out but the part about PC relevant goals (short, medium and long term) is so important and something I have struggled with when players are new and are quite superficial at character creation. I'll have to try using the template!
This came at such a good time! Might have to pick up this book! We are resuming my campaign after a 4 year hiatus with a slightly different player lineup of people who enjoy creating backstories, so I think these tips will help influence a lot of my preparation. Thank you Ginny!
“Heart: the city beneath” takes a ton of these tips and makes them a part of how players level up. You are asked to select a story archetype together with a character class. This archetype provides story beats. Players take two beats at the end of each session and tell them to the GM who will shape the story to make reaching these goals possible. Reaching a goal gives players a perk with bigger goals leading to stronger perks. It’s fun!
The more I read comments on dozens of these channels, the more I realize and appreciate the unicorn nature of my game group.
We've all had the itch to GM/DM, all love to engage new systems and ideas, and are willing to just go for it. It hadn't occurred to me how hard it could be for folks, because we've always had those opportunities.
This made me realize as a player that I spent so long figuring out a personality and backstory for my newest character that I kinda neglected giving her any real goals. I guess at this point I'll have to keep an open mind as we move through this introductory story hook and try to pick out things she might create a goal out of.
Great plan - it's never too late to create goals 🥰 It's pretty reflective of real life too
Huh, I think I might have accidentally somewhat adopted this style in a campaign I'm running. I didn't want to start with the classic "you're all in a tavern" starting point, so I decided to ask the players to come up with a reason why they'd be looking for a soothsayer and why they'd keep pursuing them even if it gets difficult/weird - this caused them to think of a question they wanted answered, and how it tied into some goal that's important to their character.
That said, I made the mistake of doing individually tailored intros all leading them to the same destination, which was maybe a mistake. If I were doing it again I'd try to group players a little to try and establish pre-existing bonds, and avoid having to jump around between six different events until they finally started meeting each other. I've definitely still managed to do way more work than I needed to, but that's been my choice to go overboard rather than a necessity.
Still, it's a lot of fun, and has informed quite a bit of the main story as I get to think about how their different goals are all tied together actually, because the soothsayer isn't at all what he appears to be (and what he appears to be is a sentient eclipse hidden in an infinite void inside a sealed chamber under Baldur's Gate)… 😈
It sounds like a lot more work than less work though. It feels like it includes a lot of ending sessions early so you can prepare whatever they want to do for next time.
@@nimz8521 I'd say it's about the same overall (aside from me making my first session more complicated than it needed to be, but that was my own fault).
It's not really about reducing work but rather its sharing the creative burden - now instead of the DM having to come up with everything, the players provide their own goals that the DM can weave into a story. It just makes the whole process that bit more collaborative.
Though it is a bit easier to work backwards from a player goal than it is to try and do the whole thing yourself, as you don't need to think about what will motivate a character to do it (only why the others will), and a lot of details can almost fill in themselves.
There's still plenty of room for creativity though. For example, one of my characters is searching for a missing relic, but I decided that the soothsayer would reveal that they were the one that ordered it stolen, and makes a deal - they'll reveal where the relic was taken if the character agrees to wear it and commune with their goddess to find out how she wants it to be used. This will then tie in to the parts of the main quest I'm still coming up with myself.
So instead of coming up with the entire main quest, plus all related side quests building up to it, I can make the side quests be the character's individual goals. This has helped to spark off ideas of my own and so-on, it's a fun way to do it, at least in my experience.
I've tried to do this in so many games, but it's not a magic bullet. It requires players who WANT to give that kind of effort, even when prompted to do so and given all the help and assistance in the world. Far too often have I said to a group "okay, so is anyone doing anything now?" and gotten dead silence in return; it's not the characters who can only react to things, but the players who cannot bring themselves to tell a story of their own. I'd love to run a game like Ginny is describing, but it takes buy-in on the other side of the screen as well, and of the 25 players I regularly run games for, ONE has taken proactive measures to follow story, and he did so ONE TIME. Any advice on how to foster those instincts would be greatly appreciated.
Here is an idea that worked very well for my players, esp. ones as you describe - at the end of each session, I have my players make goals (and bonds, which are just statements about other players that might guide their actions). The next session, we review them, and they will get experience at the end of the session if they made progress towards their goals, or role-play their bonds.(I also give a base amount of XP just for showing up.) this creates a structure, an incentive, and an expectation for the players, so they aren’t blindsided by getting asked what direction they want to go in the middle of the session. And since they know that it’s going to happen, they often thinking about what their next goal and bond will be throughout the session. Hopefully that sounds like something that’s worth a shot!
[edit - I stole this from a game called Dungeon World, so check that out if you want more info.]
I have "social" players, too, and it's hard to get them to buy in. They like hanging out, eating pizza, rolling dice, and pummeling whatever monsters I throw in front of them.
They aren't interested in doing any work. Maybe they don't trust that doing some work has real payouts? Maybe I've done too much work for them and they're having "enough fun" just interacting with the world I've put them in?
Every table is different.
Good luck!
Asking for ideas at the end of the session is good. It's win-win- if you get ideas great, if not you're free to fly. Just do it with goodwill 😊
This is good advice for experienced players and DMs. It's good to remember that new players (and DMs) only have the context of board games when they come to the table. For many if not most of them, "You can do ANYTHING! What are your character's three goals?" will be a baffling, frustrating task.
So intro this concept slowly for new players, and be ready to partner with them to create their first set of goals.
The bigger challenge here, and the challenge with "narrative" games in general, is that narratives have a main character. And an approach like this one (the author may address it) means that at any given time the players aren't aligned on a single goal (plotline) they are pursuing four or five. It's not necessarily less work figuring out how to weave five plotlines together in a way that is satisfying for every player at the table and manageable for the DM.
07:45 This isn't a new way of running games! It's an old way of running games!
Before the Dragonlance saga (c. 1984) many/most D&D games were this sort of open-world sandbox type. The DM designed a world, put people, places, and situations in it and then let the player characters loose on it. Of course, back then, there was normally one or more "megadungeons" available for the player characters to explore - especially if playing in a "points of light" sort of setting.
The old format published adventures were "modular", hence the term "adventure module", so that they could be placed into such a setting and used as set pieces for the party - they didn't have that sort of long-term story arc that the more modern long-campaign "adventure path" sort of books have.
It does mean that the DM has to be prepared to generate a lot of things pseudo-randomly and then be able to join some of those things together into a bigger piece for the setting to give the impression of some sort of cohesive, living world behind the scenes.
It also means that the players have to be prepared to participate in this sort of world building and be "self-sufficient" in determining their own goals. This book seems to be trying to wrap a framework around that. It's still a good idea if the DM does provide some story hooks or is just prepared to (randomly) detail aspects of the setting that the party can interact with otherwise they might just sit around in the tavern, go on shopping trips, open up a coffee shop, or whatever. Left entirely to their own devices they may also want to do things that the DM doesn't really enjoy running and, as the DM might want to have fun too, this might not work out for the gaming group.
As in most things, it's a balance. The players should have freedom within a setting, but the setting is (mostly) one that the DM provides as, if they don't like the way things are going, they'll likely disband the game.
What a coincidence. I literally just stumbled across this book 2 weeks ago and was blown away after putting it down. It really changed how I approached GMing moving forward. I'm glad that you finally made a video about it and gives it more attention it rightfully deserves.
This sounds great unless your players don't want this kind of game. Some players don't want to have to come up with their goals, some players hate doing this... this should have started with - check with your players and what type of game they want. The worst thing is asking players to do this who don't want to, then the game is dead.
Yeah I’d love if the players all wanted to do this. 33% of my current campaign did want to. The others just wanna play the game and react to what happens.
Here are the rules she outlined:
1. Each character should have multiple goals.
2. Goals should have varying time frames (short term, mid term, and long term).
3. Goals must be achievable/measurable (has an obvious completion point).
4. Goals must have consequences for failure (basically if the player attempts to achieve the goal and fails they shouldn't just be able to try again, something should change as a result of that failure (this gives the goal stakes which makes it interesting)).
5. Goals must be fun to pursue.
I think this might work with half of my adult group (early 20s thru 60s). However my 12 year old and 14 year old groups, just will not do goals with the exception of; kill all the others, be turned into a demon that can turn others into dust just by pointing at them, become a god, kill everything, steal all the other players characters stuff, not go home, join the adult group, . . . This really seems like something for seasoned players, who know the rules, understand role playing, understand working as a group, understand letting others have the spot light, and want more than just killing stuff to blow off steam.
Yep, did 90% of all that 😂
But a huge issue is to make sure that the individual goals of the adventurers overlap. If that's not the case, at least one of them will feel like they're just being dragged along. We literally said goodbye to one character yesterday in our 5th session because there was no reason for him to fight alongside our group.
I started a campaign recently and am super excited about my character, but I'm already seeing where I might need to retire her earlier than I'd like because I can't figure out why she'd be hanging out with most of the party. In general, I'm struggling to see how the character concepts for any of the party members gel with each other. I just seem to be the player most concerned about it. Going through an exercise to define PC goals might make this discrepancy more obvious to the other players (or might prove me wrong and show me that these PCs really can gel).
8:09 The Hierachy of NP-Seagulls? i wanna see that for sure
Literally question 2 of the 10 minute player background is "List at least two goals for the character. At least one of these goals should be one that the character has, while another should be one that you, as a player, want to see developed over the course of the game." - it's collaborative storytelling
I've been turned off of tabletop gaming because I've only ever had DMs who either wanted to run the campaign on rails, actually hijacking the players by kidnapping or putting them in places where there was literally no choice what we had to do. And provided no rewards because of their control freak nature - or who thought every second out of combat was wasted time. So we mindlessly encountered monsters every few feet. It was stupid.
Many of my players and I have read this over the last few months and each of us have had eye-opening realizations. It's an easy read and it has some GREAT suggestions for how to empower your players and create concrete ties between their motivations/goals and the narrative. One of my players who wants to DM read it and said that he "gets it now." He felt like he wouldn't enjoy following a prewritten adventure. This book opened up the wide array of alternatives where you (and your players) can create the world and their story within it together. He now wants to DM for our group and I couldn't be happier!
I disagree about "irrelevant NPC goals". To make your world feel alive and not centered around the PCs, having pseudorandom unrelated plots and events occurring around the PCs gives them a choice of reacting or continuing with their personal goals. Maybe the PCs are happy to take a break and capture a monster for the annual monster parade in a new town. If not, the parade is still some nice background flavor for their shopping trip, and if the players seem bored, whoops, one of the monsters in the parade gets loose! Don't let anyone at the table be 100% reactive, even the DM.
Even as a player, this is super eye opening. It makes me rethink how I build my backstory/goals and how useable those are for my DM. Having a set of smaller goals as well makes so much sense to drive the narrative, and yet I'm so used to seeing players have one or two major goals, which makes it harder to reach and see progress. This was super interesting, thanks Ginny!
sweet! thats how my campaign has been going! my players have been adding to my world. we live in a shire and one invented a museum there so it became a plot point. another one wants a necklace that will change him from quadruped to biped. and I can only imagine the shenanigans the last plans for us. she bought a nice dress, maybe I can create a wedding or other even she can wear it to.
I just implemented this at my table last night. I was worried my players wouldn't want to engage in the "homework" of writing goals, and EVERY SINGLE ONE knocked it out of the park! My creative energy is refreshed and I'm really excited to see how the game develops now!
I love when you offer up these tips that make our GM lives easier!
KNOCK KNOCK, IT'S THE DRACONIC TOOTH FAIRY!
😂
Then the party discovers that there really is a Draconic Tooth Fairy
And that she's mad at them
One thing I did for my almost 3 year long running campaign was allowed them to do whatever they wanted after the first major arc. during their character creation I was able to ensure all their characters would have reason to be invested in the first quest/arc, then afterwards I took a step back and asked "what's next?" to the players, told them some of the options, offered up timeskips, and now years later I have a clear list of locations and quests I have to prep for the party and can start on those now instead of 2 weeks before the players are meant to play it.
This only seems to work with proactive players.
I love my reactive players too, though. Just... it turns into a lot of work trying to get (my, specifically) reactive players to do anything, and I haven't figured out how to balance the two things yet. A work in progress, it is. I love them both, but if the ONLY half of the party that shows up is the reactive members, everyone stands around doing nothing scratching their dice trays and literally waiting for me to goad them like cattle. This is my players, I am not saying this is universal, or even all the time with them. They're fun to play with, and our play-style with each other is growing and evolving all the time. We discuss it.
Very true. That is the big weakness with this idea. But if you have engaged players who are happy to put in some work, it's a fabulous way to play
I do agree that allowing proactive players is great and makes prep easier! I do a mix, design borh proactive and reactive stuff for players, mostly because I like world building a lot and I sometimes freeze on the table if things go haywire and I got no ideas, so having a backlog of things I've designed just for fun, regardless do players play on those or not gives me good jumping board if I or players are stuck figuring what is the next step, just to have something to adapt/reused and throw at them when there is need for a push for some direction.
Also, having things just happening in the world in the background gives a sense that world is alive, even if players aren't intrested on it, and might at somepoint turn in to something they want to look into, like thinking wars, politics faction things etc as enviromental effects, if you get my drift? Even if players never interrract with the court of the country, things that happen n the court can have impact on how stuff works in other places, including things players are interested in. I got one player who loves this a lot, they notice my barely fleshed out ideas about a faction I made as a background flavour and in next campaign, they want to build a character that is interracting with that faction, even though it was no interest to their current character which I introduced the idea to. Of course, one should not over do it, but as something to put in when you got time and energy for it as a extra treat.... It's just a blast. specially if you get your proactive players flesh out parts of the world for you with the parametters you can affect and wiggleroom given to you how to use that stuff, it frees a lot of time, but doesn't nesseserally add that much extra work for the player - just makes them excited when they can participate, was their contribution either big or small, it's all a win for the GM.
I've been running games like this for years... but have never seen it put into a simple list before.
It's nice to have it laid out neatly in front of you!!
@@GinnyDi Absolutely, new GM's need more tools and resources. With all the experience I have, its hard to sit down and explain how to be a good GM to a new player. The best you get is to lead by example. It's like trying to explain to someone how to ride a bike, the best experience is just doing it, trying and failing, and this is discouraging to new GM's who need to suffer to find their stride. It's actually getting worse now with the new VTT tools, using foundry VTT is amazing but incredibly daunting and thats a completely separate and uneeded skill.
As Ginny was talking about "making characters FEEL like the hero" & "having big goals of their own"(?), I found myself coming up with a fun encounter/ premise/ campaign hook.
The idea was for a travelling "con man" (Mid to high level rogue or bard with high skill in deception & disguise) visits each character before they become adventurers & gives them an INSPIRING talk about some GRAND DESTIRY they have (IF they work hard to achieve them).
Either posing as a visiting member of the "clergy" connected to the local church & receiving a "vision" about the character. Or a "seer" (diviner), or a visiting noble, etc.
Of course, he receives some small "tithe"/ gift for his inspiring words.
And this, of course, sets the players on the path to become not only, great adventurers, but to accomplish some "great" thing(s)! (setting affecting Goals)
And even funnier is later in their adventuring career, whilst sneaking through some evil Lord's Castle's Dungeon, they FIND their "benefactor" is a prisoner! (His Cons caught up with him.) And he (eventually) confesses that he is a Con Man & there was NO "prophesy"/ "divine vision" / pre-destination relating to the characters all along!
RPG publishers tend to push the opposite direction from this style of play. Perhaps not consciously, but quite distinctly. The more players realise that they can just pull all their adventures out of their shared imaginations, the fewer setting and adventure books get sold. So it's definitely worth continually reminding each other that we don't actually need to buy books to roleplay.
Imagine if a campaign were designed to be read by both players and the DM, to inspire both of them!
Eberron is such a perfect source book, designed for both players and characters to inspire fun origins and even motivate what they want to accomplish in the world. I wish a little more of the D&D offerings were pitched this way.
I started doing this recently with my players! I got inspired with Warhammer Fantasy RPG where one step of creating a PC is setting their short-term and long-term "ambitions". They go even further and urge players to come up with ambitions/goals for the whole party, this really tightens up the group and force them to think wy they're travelling together.
And the best part - it all works, I stopped worrying if the stuff I prepare will interest my players because they tell me directly what they want to do session to session. Will be picking up this book, thanks!
So a sandbox?
Not really. Many people still run sandox as reactive, meaning players have multiple options and dont have a railroad "main quest", but it is still the master giving them possible goals to achieve. This is more about players dictating the motive and desireable results of their arcs, doesnt matter if the quests are from an adventure module or a sandbox
Ginny, whether you meant for this video to be an ad or not (and I know you didn't), it worked. My son, who plays a Dragonborn Monk in my current campaign, gave me the NPCs book in this series a few months ago and it has been such a cool resource for me. So it was a no-brainer for me to order this book (even before the end of your video). DMs need all the help they can get. So, thanks, Ginny! You're awesome and I truly appreciate your videos! Keep going!
“This isn’t sponsored”
“I agreed to write the foreword”
OK
😂
Was she paid to write the forward?
My world has “stuff” going on. Players do what they want to do. Usually this has to do with going after a bad guy, searching for something, or solving a problem of some sort. They have a lot of options at any one time. They often have to choose which ones are more important to them.
My characters have goals in their character backgrounds, but they are personal to them. These often get left undone, but they also don’t have time limits.
My opinion is, build a world and let your players be born in it (or end up in it). Let them choose what they want to do.
Although our campaign stories are of the more traditional “plot hook and response” kind, at our main table our DM has always encouraged individual character goals and worked them into the story and made room for us to reach them. And he pays attention to what’s driving them when he crafts challenges and rewards. One thing this has done for our table is to keep things interesting across campaigns and encourage character growth enough for us to reach higher levels of play. Those goals can be serious or playful. A few examples - one of my characters started her arc as a sailor who was pressed into piracy. She now has her own island free port, and is head of a powerful pirate cartel. Another character in that campaign, who was forcibly transplanted into the fantasy world from our own, introduced the concept of the hamburger and established a burger chain that has gone global. Another married a prince. And our DM recycles these characters as NPCs in his world when we run new campaigns, so achieving big in-game goals also gives one’s character a post-game life in the world.
I’ve definitely used my PC’s backstories to enhance plots but I’ll definitely be using THEIR goals as the reason to go on an adventure from now on. Great vid!
The Legend of the Five Rings RPG naturally encourages goal setting, as every character has a "ninjo" which is their heart's desire, and a "giri" which is their practical purpose/job. And as a GM, you're encouraged to pit the ninjo and giri against each other. I'm running an entire campaign just from doing that over and over, and it's great.
Another thing I think people forget is that a Game Master does not have to make up everything about the campaign. When I start a new campaign, I'll spend part of session 0 drawing the map for the area with player input. I'll place the starting town in the center of the map, draw in a couple of things I want to be there (say, a couple of roads and some hills, with the statement that the goblins who live in those hills have been waylaying travelers). Then, I'll ask each player to add something to the map, giving them prompts if they're having difficulty. (Like, "Okay... what *big* monster lives here that everyone in the area is afraid of?")
I read this book a few months ago and have been using it in a Pathfinder 2e game. Only 4 sessions in so far but I've been loving running it as a GM and my players have been saying that they think every session has been great, one of them even said that our first session was the best opening session they had been in for a long time
This book has completely changed the way I DM for the better, I love it. It is essential reading for anyone interested in running a "narrative sandbox"
Great video. Weirdly enough, when I was first thrown into DMing, this was a style I enacted despite the main plot being a SKT. I never railroaded, but the world was always changing depending on player decisions. The bad guy doesn't stop bad guying just because the party opts to do something else. Those changes DO NOT have to be negative. They only became negative when the party pushed far enough where they were a threat that required attention. They freely explorered their own goals and despite finishing SKT, we've continued onto their personal stories which depending on their level of intensity have become Story-worthy BBEG content in its own right.
First, I want to thank you for all the advice and tips. They have been a great help. I ordered that one and 3 others in the series. Eventually I will have the full set. I was looking for a book about cities and towns. I saw the series is coming out with a book for that November. I will wait on it. Your channel along with other channels in the community have been a real help. I am a visual learner. However I enjoy physical books too. I like that I will be able to physically highlight things and make notes on. My first game session won’t be a paint by numbers of what I have learned. I will apply what I learned to bring my version to life.
I’ve been playing TTRPGs for about 25 years now. Most of my games have been D&D but I have played a ton of other stuff too. I honestly think that one of the best things you can do if you want to be a better DM is to try playing other games. Some games have a wildly different focus than D&D does and while that might not really be your thing to be a majority of a game, it does give you a lot that you can bring back to your D&D games for when those things come up. The big thing Ginny talks about in this video is offloading some of the work on the players. Make them have goals and tell you what they want to see. This is literally a mechanic of the game Heart. They use something called the Beats system. The players essentially tell the GM what they want to see in this session, a story beat (Heart, get it?), and then their characters progression is somewhat tied to them dealing with that thing. Playing Heart really got me thinking about this kind of interaction between the GM and players. While I dont have a full on mechanic that requires the players to state their goals when I run D&D games, I certainly bring those experience from Heart into how I approach running games and its made me a better GM. I know it seems like asking a D&D player to try something else is tough, it really is worth it. There are a ton of great games out there with valuable lessons to bring back to D&D if that’s where you really want to spend most of your RPG time.
Ginny, thank you for recommending this book. As an old grognard, it's always a good idea to keep my ear out for new ideas for fear that my style will become stale. This is an idea that I had never really thought of, and I've been playing since the mid-70s. Thanks for showing an old dog a new trick.
Excellent as always. Here's the full tldr: We weren't as player focused when I started in the 80's, at least not the way it is now, but even Gygax said in the PHB (p. 6) that in the campaign and in the game the players are as responsible as the DM for making it a good experience for all. The onus still seemed to fall on the DM more, simply because *they* have to do all the adventure and setting prep, even if the players guide it. And to that extent, there can never be total freedom, even with full player agency *and* the help of ai. Like that quote at 4:15 "the GM decides how to turn these ... into unforgettable encounters." And "unforgettable" is a lot of work (and pressure) for the GM, who must do so repeatedly as needed. Point is, this is the common approach, the proper one perhaps, but not an insignificant thing to achieve. And the players can only contribute so much. But I agree, this strat is very useful. The goal after all is for everyone to have fun, and it's no more fun being a frustrated GM than a disappointed player.