Agreed, Bob. The DM is a storyteller, as are all the players. I think the good Professor is being needlessly snarky with his video. I believe he is both right and wrong.
I made the mistake of trying to be a storyteller when I first began DMing 20+ years ago. Learned pretty fast that the story is told by everyone. Everything the DM, players, and dice do come together to create a story. It’s a collaborative effect, and in the end, the story comes together in ways no one predicted (especially the DM). Once I got past the “I’m gonna tell an epic story” phase and got into the “PCs will never do what you expect,” phase, it made DMing a lot less stressful, and I let my campaigns evolve based on player actions.
I started the same way, too. Well, when i starteed a sandbox campaign, with just a setting, few conflicts and the first scene. In the preparation with my players all of them (two further DMs at the table) were overwhelmed. But i runs well
@@thodan467 true. I am really happy, how open minded all become. And how they set their own goals, and not just follow the path. And: It is so much more fun for me, as a DM, not to know, where the journey goes. I cheer with them :)
Its so true, I build a world that is intriguing to the party, and after each session I write it down as a novel, because only after the events have taken place, can the story be said to have happened
Not so, in my opinion, a collaborative story is still being told by all participants at the table, including the DM, even if it's in real time with random results on a die. It's just merely a story retold if recited later.
@@xzzion you just said exactly what I said. The story happens in real time. It's not pre-formed and then the players perform their scripted outcomes. The story is only told after the group does the things that it does. Not before.
@@RogueScholarMDC I guess we are getting into semantics here, but where is it defined that a story has to be performed to scripted outcomes? Maybe, that is where my disagreement is; the definition of what constitutes a "story" or "story-telling". Additionally, one could tell a "story" that they just made up on the spot, could they not? Which is almost exactly like what you are doing when you play in TTRPGs.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 A lot of people use the term story as something being told in the present but others feels that it doesn't become a story until it is something that has happened. I fall into the later camp but I see this is where the most disagreement about this issue comes from.
@@Narugafrom what I've seen and even the group I play in (not the one I run for) they want stories like critical role but so often it all falls flat. The DM is doing an insane amount of work for players who sit there and watch... Even as the Kaiju is charging a super insane death blast beam. They sit there, silently, not talking to one another, enjoying the story as it passes and they're whisked pace to place, event to event... I tried running for them and they didn't even make a backstory or plan for their character, just a personality and then expected me to carry the show (without even knowing then enough to know what they like or how they'd like the game). The ttrpg game sorry is collaborative, you're SUPPOSED to interact... Maybe you hug the hag who's attacking your party and tell her you forgive her and believe she can be a better person... And then the rogue backstabs her as all the evil was leaving her body... I feel players need to work and sync up at the table, with each other and the DM
I ran my own variation of the Black Angus and Roeweina storyline for session one of a new campaign. It was a mix of experienced players and new players. I expected Roeweina to die but the players surprised me. It turned into session two "hunt down Black Angus", and Session three "reunite the lovers". The players told me what they wanted to do and I planned accordingly. By the way, you have the best villain miniatures.
I truly appreciate the eclectic manner in which you pull from various influences, especially how you use traditional, old-school D&D adventures and set them in the WFRP universe.
Having a DM who is a story teller I can tell you he becomes upset whenever you go off the rails... Do things be wasn't expecting As a DM who feels my stories falter but it's the players adventure and agency I prioritize, I'm always excited to see what they're gonna do next BECAUSE I don't know what crazy ideas they'll have. Last campaign my lvl 4 party of 3 wanted to take on a fire giant in it's own lair... And their idea of persuasion was "there's gonna be some changes around here (in his own home)".
I love the idea that the dice actually make a difference in the trajectory of the story. So many DMs I see post about their and their party's exploits online talk about how they fudge the dice to avoid player character death or party wipe even when the players make bad decision after bad decision and that sort of thing. To me that undermines the point of playing a _game_ and having chance mechanics in it at all; might as well have a rule that says "Attacks always hit and always cause [X] damage"
World of darkness is a different system. In it the game master is more a storyteller than in d&d. Not completely though, so the title is a bit of a misnomer.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I bet he did. Sure would be interested in hearing some of them. I know he didn't have anything against white wolf though, their scarred lands book relics and rituals has a letter from him praising it in the front cover.
@Szymon Lech Dzięcioł to a certain extent yeah. I've played some WoD games(two to be specific; vampire redemption and a regular actual core game, so my experience is very limited). And both focus more on investigation and role-play, then adventure and exploration. Supposedly combat is not a large part of WoD, but that was not my experience. One game I've read about, and know to be a story game based off the reading, is the mistborn role-playing game. I actually converted the d6 mistborn system to d&d's d20 system. It's not exactly balanced, and may or may not have been successful, but I did it, and it is available for use in my own homebrew campaigns. I'm still in the process of creating monster and item conversions though, so it's a work in progress.
If you’re new here, and this resonates with you, please also watch Trevor Duvall’s response in agreement. He builds on this already brilliant argument. Me, Myself and Die mainly focuses on solo play, though his experience as a GM is vast. PDM, you might have another positive response as I feel this is the main reason for my “reluctant” nature, I always stall with Gm’ing because I over plan, creating a story without the players, or when attempting to play solo, the dice. So thx this helps overcome the bolder I place in front of myself, freeing me to simply play and relax.
I was ready to roll to attack you based on the video title/concept, but after watching, I guess I agree with you. If you're running a home campaign, though, you are also a story teller. To run a home campaign, you have to have at least a thumbnail of a story in mind.
@@leandrochavez6480 yeah, i mean, sure most of the time? but if you're in a boss encounter and the rng is just letting the boss monster get ripped anew one because he can't hit anything, you end up with a disappointing and boring encounter. I agree that the story is a communal effort, but if the story is uninteresting because the dice are being garbage, you have the power to correct it, everything in moderation.
@@tommaydag420 True, that's why you plan for contingencies. BBEG not hitting anyone? Have him use his environment to his favor. Is a TPK oh so nigh? Again, use the environment to give the PCs a chance out, or give them an option to surrender. The dice facilitate outcomes as much as the GM does - it's a shared deal.
@@commandercaptain4664 that only covers so much when you're dealing with very low levels. If you've got 2 PC's with AC over 18 at level 3, spells would pretty much obliterate them but physical attacks landing is like pulling teeth with a pair of tweezers. I'm honestly tempted to never allow certain types of armor to come with starting characters at this point.
100% agree. Been trying to explain to our DM for a while now that we are over loaded with plot and his story that we kinda don’t feel needed as players in the campaign. Sometimes it just feels like railroading where it doesn’t really matter what we do cause it’s like the story has already been decided
You did a better job at making me understand this belief than others. I still believe that being a DM is like reading a choose your own adventure book where there are some predictable choices to be made and every once in awhile a player surprises you and leads you down an alternate path.
I love random tables in play, specifically tables customized for the setting and location. The results force me to improvise creatively. I'm never sure how the players will react, what they will do. There is no story-trail for them to follow or me to predict. I love sitting back at the end of a session and being amazed and wonderstruck from the story which emerged.
DMing became more fun for me when I focused on building scenarios with no expectations or obvious solutions. The stories come from my players collaborating to interact with the world
Yeah, I learned to not have the entire story arc planned out after about 3 sessions in my first campaign. Now, I just plan out possible adventure hooks to guide the players to the story, and vaguely where it might end. Everything else is completely up to the players and the dice. Improve skills help a lot too, since at least a quarter of the time the players will go off in the opposite direction.
I've only just recently started to GM, and its been an uphill battle for certain. I've run 3 short modules with my group to get my bearings and have done fairly well. But I have an issue with railroading a bit to much. I can improv well enough to get from point A to point B, but I feel like I keep saying: "Just go here" with my NPC's too often. That table you mad could be a huge help. What sorts of things should I look for in making a Encounter table like the one in the episode. And about storytellers. The thing I've begun to learn with D&D is that it is a game of cooperative storytelling. In that, no one person is THE storyteller. The GM presents a conflict, the players construct a solution, the dice decide the outcome. Its exactly like you said. This channel has been a big help in catching bad habits before they form in my GM'ing.
@Phoenixguild I think it's easier to fall into railroading players with a module. I am starting a new group with a module that basically says if the PCs don't take the wizards offer and get the MacGuffen (magic item), everyone dies. Now I have a couple modules that I can use so I could give the players two options so it's a bit better, but you can see how railroading could happen. I'm lucky in that my players are avowed grognarrds like me, so I don't see them refusing, but.... 😁
@@TheLostFireWithin no, you allow a story to be told. You don’t narrate that story, you might narrate what happens as a result of the players decision. You make the story react to the ones making the choices.
I don't disagree with the Professor as to the respective roles of the GM, Players, and Dice but I do think that in order to get a nice clickbaitable video, he does oversimplify things a bit and that ultimately he also doesn't make a very convincing argument that he isn't a Story Teller. First, GMs make backstory. There is a history that PC's enter into continuously, discovering new history as they explore. The Professor calls this "the conflict" and that's true, but it's also a story. NPC's have made actions and created plot arcs before the PC's get involved, and the players enter into these stories and begin to influence them. That's story telling no matter what you want to call it, in as much as it involves and requires the DM to have a sense of drama in order to make that backstory compelling and interesting to uncover. The other thing is that when describing the proposition->fortune->resolution game loop, for the purposes of this video the Professor very much minimizes the roll of the GM in narrating and deciding on the resolution. It's very easy to pretend that the dice decide what happen, but even in the example the Professor gives that is not true. The dice only decide how fortunate that the player is. For example, there is nothing in the rules that explicitly tells you how to run a father trying to hug an estranged son. The dice cannot tell you how that event transpires. Only a GM can tell you that. And while the dice decided that the player was "fortunate", it was entirely up to the Professor to decide what the fortune meant and.... he railroaded player. You see as the Professor had scripted it, it was supposed to be a fight between father and son with the expected outcome of the son dying. But the player was completely unable to change that outcome with his hug. All the dice did was change the transcript of play, but not the outcome of the scene - which still involved the father watching his son die and not really having anything to do with that outcome. The dice didn't declare that the son would jump into a bottomless pit - the Professor did. And that's story telling. That's the Professor making a fiat decision as to what in his opinion is the most dramatic way to play out a scene, arguably at the expense of the players intentions (which seems to be to spare the life of his son).
So many times I've seen the dice work magic. They're the pivot of every story. They can drastically change the course of events, but equally often they can thoroughly reinforce the narrative or the core truth of the character(s). A lot of my favorite moments from games I've played or watched are about how the dice made the story resonate. They're only tools, to be sure, but they drive the players in unexpected ways, and they give depth and a kind of legitimacy to what would otherwise be just another session of backyard make-believe.
I love making scenes. I never know what is going to happen in the boat chase while they try to deliver the wedding cake...but the players normally come up with something interesting.
The main thing I say when giving advice or speaking with the players I am DMing for, is that "the story is made at the table, not while we are sitting alone writing in notebooks." You explained it perfectly the DM provides scenarios, the players provide solutions/responses to those scenarios, and the dice and the DM adjudicate the outcome of the players' actions. The story is created through the interaction between these steps. If you want to tell a story write a book or screenplay. DnD is a story making game, not a story telling game, the distinction is extremely important.
There are no story tellers in my game, players included. I don’t think I even qualify as a story teller if I adjudicate resolutions directly, provided it’s not prescribed and I endeavour to be an impartial referee. Dice certainly help with this though :p A story by definition has a plot, a prescribed sequence of events, which is the inverse of why the game appeals to me as both a DM and player. I play because it’s an emergent experience. The Alexandrian’s ‘don’t prep plots’ article is a great companion to your video, which sums it up much better than I: “Your gaming session is not a story - it is a happening. It is something about which stories can be told, but in the genesis of the moment it is not a tale being told. It is a fact that is transpiring.” Great video!
This is why I've always preferred the term 'Referee' to Dungeon 'Master'. Referee implies a laissez-faire approach of stepping in to make the final calls and to keep the machine on the rails. The beauty of RPG's is that their collaborative story-telling experiences and it's the GROUP and the DICE that makes the game unique and fun. Great video Professor!
This is an important topic. There's a lot of new DMs trying to figure out what their role is. Having all that pressure to entertain your group with a great story will lead to burnout (I am there now). Some DMs will not come back to the table. This is great advice for us new DMs.
There seems to be an implication that being a storyteller means you have to railroad the players. That simply isn't the case, though. You can improvise a story on the fly, and there's no prerequisite for it to be planned out ahead of time. In fact, I reckon most of us engaged in freeform storytelling when we were kids. There are plenty of games where you tell a collaborative story by saying a single word or sentence and then the next person picks up from there. An improvised story is no less of a story than one you wrote ahead of time, it just requires different skills (advance preparation versus on the fly improvisation). The fact that players have input on the outcome just means you're engaging in collaborative storytelling. To use a simple example, Tracy Hickman isn't any less of a storyteller because he co-write many books with Margaret Weis! Collaboration on stories is as old as storytelling itself.
The moment you engage in collaborative storytelling, you personally are no longer telling a story. Your job as a DM is therefore not to write a story. Your job is simply to provide the setting for the characters.
Yup, this is the Königsweg of writing adventures. In fact, I wrote a very similar city adventure: Merchant city of Vallusa, two rival merchant houses, each supporting rival street gang factions and smuggling rings. Throw in even more political factions and my player end goal of overthrowing the evil overlord who rules the land, and you got enough material for years of campaign. That was, until my players managed to make an enemy of every single faction in the city, and got the Inquisition on their asses. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with that particular group of characters.
Wow, I loved this advice Prof. You know, it reminded me of Critical Role and their 'end of campaign' show. The players kept asking the DM questions; what happened here, what would have happened, etc. And just as the Prof. tells us, the DM in CR did exactly that. He rolled with the rolls, he paid attention to what his players were doing and built the campaign not from a script but just notes and a willingness to go where the game takes everyone. And man, if you can get that right you will be rewarded. :)
Great content, back again! I'm not sure what I call myself. I arrange the conflict, sure, but afterward, I also can't help but writing up a summary of the session. I'll typically interject mini-scenes that weren't there during the game just to improve the flow when read back. Thanks for quality content.
Agree, I think of the dice as another player at the table, that takes the narrative to places none of the other players at the table would of taken it.
Anecdote: probably the single most fun - from extended laughter volume - in a session I've DM'd was pure serendipity. One PC - the "Viking" fighter (before there were barbarians, ADD1e) - got involved in a dart game whilst his colleague, a rogue, tried to work the Inn and taproom for information. Somewhere in the midst of the competition, the Viking rolls a '1' on his dart throw; a roll for random direction results in the dart sailing into the crowd; no one will be surprised that the "attack" roll on this was a "20" - a dart right in the eye of ... well, of course, the scion of the local money laundering guild's chief. This lead to a massive bar fight; the guard being called; the enmity of the money laundering guild who hired assassins; the rest of the party working on a break-out scheme ... in other words, two follow-on sessions completely unrelated to the adventure arc (until, of course, it became intertwined later ...!). But the shear fun of the chaos and craziness - improvised weapons (chairs and spirt bottles thrown) etc. was hilarious. The catharsis of our very own Western bar brawl (or Trouble with Tribbles fight) was simply irreplaceable and I still remember the scene now almost +40 years with a grin.
Great to see some love for The Veiled Society. I agree that it is underappreciated, and provides lots of great ideas and a wonderful way to start an urban campaign. Looking forward to hearing more about how you run it. Keep up the great work professor!
This is the reason I like your content so much. You question commonly held beliefs and to make people think. And I think, seeing through one own false beliefs is the basis of all character development.
Couldn't agree more. The DM really only has to present a few different hooks pulling the party in different directions and then play off of the players choices. They can definitely engage in the story telling process / the stories progression by deciding what is put in front of the players but at the end of the day its finalized by the players and dice as you said. After all, no plan/story survives contact with the party.
right at 50 seconds, YES!!! I don't tell stories, I create problems, complications, conflicts. I stir up trouble, and cause bad things to happen to innocent people. The heroes have to find solutions using their wits and whatever is on their sheet, and that struggle is the story.
So there is a video on youtube by an emmy winning screen writer who says creating conflict for the protagonist (the players in this case) is the most basic core of what story telling is. Because when there is no conflict, the story isn't very good. The only difference between what he is doing and what you describe yourself doing as DM is that he gets to decide how the protagonist reacts, you don't. I am pretty sure what you do as the DM qualifies as story telling.
A simple but brilliant thing to bring up. I feel that 90% of all issues brought up on various Reddit DnD-subs would go away if people would realize this. It’s just one: “A player died and now the group is angry”/“my players don’t agree with where my plot is going” thread after another. PC:s die and the plot goes where the players choose to take it, it’s that simple.
PCs should be rebranded as "Character Players" and DMs as "World Players". Character Players play the characters; World Players play the rest of the world. Together, through their combined interplay they create the story.
In my Colonial America Spellpunk Alt-History campaign, the characters are professional monster hunters. Many of their adventures are missions they choose from a few available, and generally they choose their next mission at the end of the session so I can build the scenario for their mission (and make it more than just go here, kill monster).
I am preparing The Veiled Society myself for the basis of an urban campaign this fall for my players. I remember it fondly because it is not the typical dungeon crawl that many some to know and expect.
2:50 - The most likely scenario for the PCs to enter the "under the floors" dungeon is through the cellar of Goodwife Thanato (marked as "5" on the map), which they just met at the inn. Not numbering the map in a way so that the text begins with the description of the chamber that the PCs are most likely to enter first, is clearly an early days oversight.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I totally agree :) Though this confusion could be leveraged into an asset: E.g. the PCs of my group like to enjoy themselves in taverns a lot. So I can imagine a scenario, where they are at the inn, drinking and gambling, when I just fade out the scene and let them wake up with a hangover somewhere in a dark dungeon, without recollection how they got there. One of the PCs might have some blood on his clothes and hands. (They probably were just getting more to drink form the inns cellar, while the inn keeper was shortly absent, and stumbled into the maze before they got lost. The PC with the blood just hit his head a bit to hard down there.) On their way out of there, they might run into the murdered nice. Without recollection of what happened, blood all over them and no alibi, there will be trouble ahead.
As a DM, I never try to force my players down a specific path, but I consider myself a storyteller as a DM nonetheless, for a few reasons. 1. I think that the world surrounding the players should be rich with stories in order to make it feel real and alive. I often am writing stories that aim to parallel the themes that are present throughout the players stories and the game overall. I’ve just recently written a whole story for the introductory town they’re in that explores what it means to be a family and what it means for that family to lose one another, which lines up with a lot of what the players have written into their stories. Family is a big theme, so I want to explore it not only through the PCs but through their NPCs who can add to that theme to make it more felt throughout. 2. I never force my players down a certain path, but a good dm can still take the actions of the players and present a world and narrative that works well to build towards the themes and the stories that the group wants to explore together. At the end of the day, being a storyteller isn’t about railroading your players down the path you want them to go down because it fits your story, it’s about working with the group and better understanding the stories that they wish to explore in order to build a world that narratively and thematically fits that story.
I think it's easy to fall into Storyteller Mode because it can take a lot of story to set up the conflicts. Good reminder to step back after completing that setup work.
The story is the output/outcome from the GM and players interacting and their results of those interactions. Sounds like a great idea for a campaign Prof, love your videos!
Watched the Plot Threadz and Goblinz video and would up here thanks to the algorithm. I don't know when I realized this, but I think it was some time in the past few years. And it can be fun. For example, I threw a goblin ambush at a the party I was running through Crypt of the Everflame, and from that one encounter, the party got a mascot/replacement rogue, some helpful information, a way to get to the Crypt fast enough to save the townsfolk that were supposed to die, and the seeds for the next adventure. None of that was planned when I threw twenty something goblins and a warg at them. (Some of the goblins escaped, but they aren't recurring villains just yet. They need to survive the next fight for me to call them that.)
So, out of the three types of DMs - score keeper (you roll dice and tally numbers only), tour guide (you say "here you are, guy sells you this the person tells you that"), and story teller (describes the sights and smells, narrates what people do and how the action looks and feels, and even runs dialog for the NPCs while players actually role play) - which do you prefer? Note: I left out the book writer (the railroader who gives no choice and never gives the players any agency).
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 But you are still a storyteller. You tell the story that is unfolding, not controlling it. Traditionally storytellers are merely those that tell other's stories, the Bard, the reporter, they didn't tell the knight or warrior or politician or average person what to do or where to go (though to watch the news today, maybe reporters have changed their goal somewhat). So my point is I don't buy the premise of the video, only because you define storytelling incorrectly. I do agree with the content.
One of the few takes that you get absolutely right. DM only provides the setting not the story. The characters direct the narrative, the dice give us the results, and everyone works together to make the descriptions and complete the process. This is how d&d works.
I ran this less than a year ago using the Rules Cyclopedia. I ran it staight up Mystara in Specularum. I padded it out to like six sessions, and used the Radu family as a segway to Isle of Dread.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I kicked off the campaign with a Miami Vice vibe, the Radus were smuggling drugs from the island, and the party found the Barbarossa map in Radu's office. It is like you said, I try to only plan a session or two ahead of time. I had left several strings scattered about. They could have followed leads that would have taken them to the Keep on the Borderlands or Nights Dark Terror. But I am glad they picked Isle of Dread!
@@NefariousKoel Zzanga, as described in the Dawn of the Emperors. I am really into nerding out on Mystara and old campaign Gazetteers. I also tossed in Sippopa, from the indi module Lapis Observatory, which I placed on the island. I also used material from the Goodman games HC, converted into Basic (the old material was already in that format, it was just the new material I converted). There are still some loose threads from all of that, but that got overshadowed by the political struggle between the different sentient groups. Tanaroa is now the capitol of the Imperial Zeb Republic. The Veiled Society (Radu family) is the major cartel in this situation, and they are still a factor in the campaign.
@@markfaulkner8191 - Ah. Was wondering if you modified something like a Rakasta tribe running the production end or wotnot. Sounds like you've got some Mystara fun set up!
I do agree the GM fancying themselves a storyteller is taking away from the players' contribution/agency, I usually intro new players to D&D as "A collaborative storytelling game".
Ive been waiting for this episode since you mentioned it a while back. Im of the Cult of the Dice. I make my players roll for everything. Not so much as a pass/fail test, but so we all can see how they pass/fail. Adventure is always around the corner, when theres a chance to roll a 1. :o)
I hear what you're saying, the dice definitely determine the outcome of an encounter quite heavily; but the fact of the matter is that the dice only determine the *direction* of the results. In your example you said your player rolled a Nat20 to hug his son instead of fighting him, and then he jumped into a hole. The dice never said in any way that he had to make that jump; he could've chosen to try to stay alive and attone for his actions. He could have tried to run and hide from the world to avoid facing the shame his actions brought about his family name. Ultimately yes, the dice do determine the outcome of every single encounter, but as a DM *you* are the one that interprets what the results of the dice mean. In this respect, in addition to being a narrator of sorts to begin with, the DM is very much a storyteller; it just isn't a predetermined storyline.
I think there's a difference between storytelling and story creating. The players, dice, and DM all create the story together, but I'd contend that the DM is still the one tasked with telling most of that story and so is the primary storyteller at the table.
I learned this back in the day. We used to run through modules and it was fun and I used to run entirely home campaigns -- pick a random Greyhawk hex, and you start there. Same thing... make up no more than a single session and do a lot of on-the-fly work. Then Dragonlance came out and "It's not the DM's story" was so true as the modules were unplayable because they were so scripted. Realized... single session plan was better. One of my best campaigns was exactly this way. I made up a single session ahead and would just end each session with "Where are you going next?" and then write up the next weeks. Yet, the story was so organic that at the end everyone thought the entire eight month plot was written out. Towards the end, the players had established what they were going to do and the rest just fell into place. The final bad guy was a diviner, so I had gave him diary (10 actual pages typed) basically recapping everything the PCs did for the last months and how he "foiled" them at various points, misled them, and finally had to deal with them. Everyone assumed the entire plot was pre-written. Over a decade later, I tried running the campaign again. It didn't seem organic, it was obvious where people needed to go/to, etc. Still a great campaign -- now nicely written out, better maps, great encounters, etc. -- but I spent a lot of time telling people how the original group handled things. In the end, it was their campaign.
You gave me a great idea for session zero. Set up the group dynamic and get the players onboard as to where they interested in going to start. Then every meeting they set the focus for the next game. Nice idea.
A great video as always and looks like a pretty good campaign you’re running in there, I can’t wait to see more videos about the veiled society, gonna read it, maybe I’m gonna include some parts in my ongoing campaign too.
I agree with your point of view here. The DM is responsible for creating the setting, factions, villains, monsters, obstacles, etc. which create opportunities for stories to develop organically. Sometimes it's more fun to let the dice generate some of the settings. Although, I have always been very creative in designing maps and complexes, I'm also a big fan of Appendix A in the DMG. Even something generated randomly can inspire whole adventure plots.
making dice rolls in public is SUPER important imho. I was honestly surprised after GMing for several years, always rolling in the open (because it never occurred to me to roll hidden dice) that some GMs roll in secret and then lie about the results. If you roll dice in secret and then change the result to steer the story in a way you as a GM want it to go, why even roll in the first place?
That is like saying the art director and set design director are not storytellers. Everybody is telling the the story, but you are working as the background of the story. Hence you our stake in the story because you are doing more makes you the key storyteller. You are playing everybody save for the improv that might happen by the actors to develop the story, but the DM is the key stakeholder in the story. And is the biggest storyteller of them all. Unless, you never ask for a die roll, you are a director. Your directing them in methods of probability on how a story will play out, which makes every DM the key storyteller. When a die roll die roll does not go your way, it’s an editor asking for a rewrite. No story is written without rewrites, which makes the DM the key storyteller because with every die roll he is asking for rewrites to play out so he can story tell them to his audience. Some rewrites are just harder to make then others. Either way, the DM is the key storyteller. Good stuff! And good sir, I beg to differ on your point.
Hey professor Dungeon Master. I totally agree. I've had my campaign take a turn to seek out a powerful cleric to raise 3 dead characters, 2 players and 1 npc. Because one of the survivors was falling in love with one that died. They had to work against time as in my game gentle repose gets less effective with subsequent casting. So the logistical problem of carrying 3 bodies plus gear was a joy to run. The characters that died rolled new characters that later became villains to the players due to the choices the players made.
I'm not a crafter myself, but I'd love to see a video about crafting the demon behind Deathbringer. Since it is a near perfect replica from the AD&D phb.
I am the patron PDM mentioned. Here is a link to the 3D file. If you have or know someone with a 3D printer you can have your very own! www.thingiverse.com/thing:3984055
I think you went off on a small tangent, but I agree with you. At the end of every session, the party tells me where they are going next and I prep the information and try to make sure it will have game elements to satisfy everyone's play style. My prep is about having details about the scene, the objectives and the obstacles for them to discover, use and overcome. I don't bother figuring out how they will solve them, because I am usually wrong and their ideas are usually better. I also don't "metagame" my players and alter anything because I know they have an ability, magic item or spell that could nullify it. I hope they do! The dice and the players tell the story, I just connect the scenes and setup rewards and consequences. I like to reward them and have older decisions pay off. If they say or do something interesting that could have lingering effects, I make note of those so they can come back around in the future. eg. "My name is Inigo Montoya..." lol
That is a really nice tie! Classy...and that's about all I can say off the cuff. You've given me a lot to think about. The main idea is that a broad-brush world-building (Grim-dark, vaguely German, old-school Grimm's Fairy-Tales) with a series of general characters (Munchberger family et all) a few Solid NPC cast members, and then a general chart of rolled encounters is enough for good games. The nit-picky room by room dungeon, scads of monsters and a Big Evil Boss is not required. So different from 1980's D&D. I've got Village of Hommlet and a new group of players to experiment on...I mean with...very interesting!
I think my favorite moment was when a Wizard was exploring a dungeon and opened a door into a room of enemies whom were playing poker. The player freaked out but she asked if she could join the poker game. I laughed my ass off as the GM. I rolled some dice and made the enemies feel neutral to the Wizard. It was supposed to be another dungeon room to start combat. Instead, I got to reveal large bits of info I have been dying to reveal. They played Poker and it became a role play moment of the minions revealing the name of the boss, the fact they dont get paid overtime, and the Wizard won pocket change. That player always likes to bring it up and made a new character based on Gambit from the X-Men. A magical warrior that loves to gamble. (In the different campaign, he usually gambled her adventuring rewards. It made for a fun subplot of debt collectors chasing the character).
I ran a LARP years ago with a "storyteller" who wrote scenarios that included assumptions about HOW and WHEN the players would do things, and what they would do and THINK, which would inevitably lead to the next step of his scenario. The rest of us on the plot committee had to patiently ask him what he had planned for each step when the players DIDN'T do things exactly as he had planned. Well, when the time to run his plotline came, the players did exactly the "wrong" things and got him very frustrated. The players had fun, the people playing the NPCs had fun. Because we stepped in behind this guy's back and adjusted things on the fly.
100%. I like to think of myself as a "facilitator" or a "guide". I also feel that there *is* no story until after the session. Those tales get told over and over again for years and years. That is why a good death is better than a game where everyone wins.
Instead of being called Game Masters, they should be called Game Enablers, or GEs *General Electric has entered the chat* Never mind, back to GMs. *General Motors has enter-* AW C'MON!!!!
Yes,so we'll said- that vest has an advantage besides it's bonus, doesn't it. Thanks for keeping the game real! Love you campaign! You are inspiring my upcoming one!
Eventually, even Prof. DM rolls a '1'. Yes, in a collaborative environment, a DM can and should create situations and have the players (and partly the dice) resolve them, but a DM can and should ALSO weave those things into a some form of cohesive whole which is a story. Put differently, Player agency and dice decide if and how the PCs find and recover the McGuffin, but don't create the McGuffin, the world where the McGuffin is buried or why the McGuffin is, in fact, a McGuffin. That's the job of the DM to tell that story. All that said, thanks for the video and I'm interested to see your next one. Also? Really like the vest. :)
My most recent game, DMing, I had intended all enemies, including a 10 year old boy, to have intellect devourers in them. Their strong hope for a necklace, belonging to the now dead and former intellect devoured grandmother, could possibly be the answer to a spell and NOT an intellect devourer. Their desire, ideas, and hope changed my mind on the son's role as an NPC. NOT just another victim, but another person saved.
I use cards from Call to Adventure to create places the party visit You can call me lazy, but I play for the gameplay. Plus it makes the game interesting and random, and allows me to play along as a mute npc who doesnt speak or find puzzle solutions and doesnt carry the party, only supports a little as a bard.
The players interact with your content, they tell you what they try to do and you tell them what happens. That makes you a storyteller. +2 vest foiled.
Truth. I try to give players several possible story-lines (shiny hooks, that is) to pursue, and leave things open enough to improvise if they go off on an unexpected tangent (which they often do), or if the dice themselves throw a monkey wrench in the works (all too likely). I'm currently setting up a quasi-sandbox with a long-term story arc the players MIGHT pursue as they gather clues... and other branches and side-quests if they go off the rails... but I'm sure they'll surprise me a few times anyway.
The Dice are the other player in the game. I switched to a system where the GM rolls no dice. But, when I did roll dice, it was on the table; the suspense was part of the metagame, and an experienced GM will use the meta. I really like your philosophy of planning only the next session - you never know what the players will do! I've found that planning anything more leads to burn-out. I also incorporate pre-made modules and even campaigns into the mix, simmering and stirring as the situation suits. Using pre-written material, I don't have to worry too much about main ingredients, and can add my own spices to suit the taste of my players. - the original writers have done that bit of work for me. (I've found the most success running things that way, other's experiences may vary). As GMs, all we do is set a stage, toss in the extras, and maybe drag in a main character once in a while. The other players, and the dice, are the stars of the show.
Great video. Good content and you are coming off smoother in your videos and presentation. Not that you weren't good before but I think recently you must have leveled...
The whole group is the storyteller! Great points about how cliche stories are really just the archetypes we love most
Hi Bob! Thanks for commenting.
Bob... stop.
Agreed, Bob. The DM is a storyteller, as are all the players. I think the good Professor is being needlessly snarky with his video. I believe he is both right and wrong.
@@FilthyCasualHobbies There are plenty of dms/gms who are _way_ too up on themselves and need this kind of snark though.
Collective storytelling means there’s no one storyteller.
I made the mistake of trying to be a storyteller when I first began DMing 20+ years ago. Learned pretty fast that the story is told by everyone. Everything the DM, players, and dice do come together to create a story.
It’s a collaborative effect, and in the end, the story comes together in ways no one predicted (especially the DM).
Once I got past the “I’m gonna tell an epic story” phase and got into the “PCs will never do what you expect,” phase, it made DMing a lot less stressful, and I let my campaigns evolve based on player actions.
That second phase had me laughing out loud.
the GM is one of the players, only with a different role to play
I started the same way, too. Well, when i starteed a sandbox campaign, with just a setting, few conflicts and the first scene. In the preparation with my players all of them (two further DMs at the table) were overwhelmed. But i runs well
@@sleepnt992
if all´ve fun you do it right
@@thodan467 true. I am really happy, how open minded all become. And how they set their own goals, and not just follow the path.
And: It is so much more fun for me, as a DM, not to know, where the journey goes. I cheer with them :)
Something I've been saying for decades - the story isn't "told" until after what happens, happens.
EXACTLY!
Its so true, I build a world that is intriguing to the party, and after each session I write it down as a novel, because only after the events have taken place, can the story be said to have happened
Not so, in my opinion, a collaborative story is still being told by all participants at the table, including the DM, even if it's in real time with random results on a die. It's just merely a story retold if recited later.
@@xzzion you just said exactly what I said. The story happens in real time. It's not pre-formed and then the players perform their scripted outcomes. The story is only told after the group does the things that it does. Not before.
@@RogueScholarMDC I guess we are getting into semantics here, but where is it defined that a story has to be performed to scripted outcomes? Maybe, that is where my disagreement is; the definition of what constitutes a "story" or "story-telling". Additionally, one could tell a "story" that they just made up on the spot, could they not? Which is almost exactly like what you are doing when you play in TTRPGs.
I have always had the idea that the DM was the Narrator. The give the setting and explain the outcomes of events that have happened.
I agree.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 A lot of people use the term story as something being told in the present but others feels that it doesn't become a story until it is something that has happened. I fall into the later camp but I see this is where the most disagreement about this issue comes from.
@@Narugafrom what I've seen and even the group I play in (not the one I run for) they want stories like critical role but so often it all falls flat. The DM is doing an insane amount of work for players who sit there and watch... Even as the Kaiju is charging a super insane death blast beam. They sit there, silently, not talking to one another, enjoying the story as it passes and they're whisked pace to place, event to event...
I tried running for them and they didn't even make a backstory or plan for their character, just a personality and then expected me to carry the show (without even knowing then enough to know what they like or how they'd like the game).
The ttrpg game sorry is collaborative, you're SUPPOSED to interact... Maybe you hug the hag who's attacking your party and tell her you forgive her and believe she can be a better person... And then the rogue backstabs her as all the evil was leaving her body...
I feel players need to work and sync up at the table, with each other and the DM
I ran my own variation of the Black Angus and Roeweina storyline for session one of a new campaign. It was a mix of experienced players and new players. I expected Roeweina to die but the players surprised me. It turned into session two "hunt down Black Angus", and Session three "reunite the lovers". The players told me what they wanted to do and I planned accordingly.
By the way, you have the best villain miniatures.
Lol. I love hearing stories about my scenarios--ESPECIALLY the ones that don't go as planned!
I truly appreciate the eclectic manner in which you pull from various influences, especially how you use traditional, old-school D&D adventures and set them in the WFRP universe.
Thanks! I appreciate you taking the time to comment.
Having a DM who is a story teller I can tell you he becomes upset whenever you go off the rails... Do things be wasn't expecting
As a DM who feels my stories falter but it's the players adventure and agency I prioritize, I'm always excited to see what they're gonna do next BECAUSE I don't know what crazy ideas they'll have. Last campaign my lvl 4 party of 3 wanted to take on a fire giant in it's own lair... And their idea of persuasion was "there's gonna be some changes around here (in his own home)".
The randomness of the storyline is what sets RPGs apart from simple storytelling. Unexpected surprises are the spice of life!
I love the idea that the dice actually make a difference in the trajectory of the story. So many DMs I see post about their and their party's exploits online talk about how they fudge the dice to avoid player character death or party wipe even when the players make bad decision after bad decision and that sort of thing. To me that undermines the point of playing a _game_ and having chance mechanics in it at all; might as well have a rule that says "Attacks always hit and always cause [X] damage"
Prof: DMs are not Storytellers.
WoD: _I felt that_
6:37
Me, a Star Wars fan: _I felt that force_
World of darkness is a different system. In it the game master is more a storyteller than in d&d. Not completely though, so the title is a bit of a misnomer.
I once met Gary Gygax. He had some amusing things to say about WoD.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I bet he did. Sure would be interested in hearing some of them. I know he didn't have anything against white wolf though, their scarred lands book relics and rituals has a letter from him praising it in the front cover.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1
Gary Gygax had some very... limited views on what is or isn't, or should and shouldn't be an RPG.
@Szymon Lech Dzięcioł to a certain extent yeah. I've played some WoD games(two to be specific; vampire redemption and a regular actual core game, so my experience is very limited). And both focus more on investigation and role-play, then adventure and exploration. Supposedly combat is not a large part of WoD, but that was not my experience.
One game I've read about, and know to be a story game based off the reading, is the mistborn role-playing game.
I actually converted the d6 mistborn system to d&d's d20 system. It's not exactly balanced, and may or may not have been successful, but I did it, and it is available for use in my own homebrew campaigns. I'm still in the process of creating monster and item conversions though, so it's a work in progress.
What I always tell my players is that it's not "my game but OUR game so let's create a story together."
If you’re new here, and this resonates with you, please also watch Trevor Duvall’s response in agreement. He builds on this already brilliant argument. Me, Myself and Die mainly focuses on solo play, though his experience as a GM is vast. PDM, you might have another positive response as I feel this is the main reason for my “reluctant” nature, I always stall with Gm’ing because I over plan, creating a story without the players, or when attempting to play solo, the dice. So thx this helps overcome the bolder I place in front of myself, freeing me to simply play and relax.
I always explained DMing as writing a screen play for an improve act.
Have you played the Fantasy Flight Genesys system with its dice pool of coolness? It takes "Let the dice decide" to another level which is AWESOME!!
I was ready to roll to attack you based on the video title/concept, but after watching, I guess I agree with you. If you're running a home campaign, though, you are also a story teller. To run a home campaign, you have to have at least a thumbnail of a story in mind.
Then my clickbait title was a success! Of course, DMs are storytellers, in a sense. But the dice always tell the truth!
"You must respect the dice." - Probably the best philosophy for DMs!
... Because i wont.
@@leandrochavez6480 yeah, i mean, sure most of the time? but if you're in a boss encounter and the rng is just letting the boss monster get ripped anew one because he can't hit anything, you end up with a disappointing and boring encounter. I agree that the story is a communal effort, but if the story is uninteresting because the dice are being garbage, you have the power to correct it, everything in moderation.
I also at least roll and announce target numbers for immediate actions in the open. The longer action results are hidden for suspence.
@@tommaydag420 True, that's why you plan for contingencies. BBEG not hitting anyone? Have him use his environment to his favor. Is a TPK oh so nigh? Again, use the environment to give the PCs a chance out, or give them an option to surrender. The dice facilitate outcomes as much as the GM does - it's a shared deal.
@@commandercaptain4664 that only covers so much when you're dealing with very low levels. If you've got 2 PC's with AC over 18 at level 3, spells would pretty much obliterate them but physical attacks landing is like pulling teeth with a pair of tweezers. I'm honestly tempted to never allow certain types of armor to come with starting characters at this point.
100% agree. Been trying to explain to our DM for a while now that we are over loaded with plot and his story that we kinda don’t feel needed as players in the campaign. Sometimes it just feels like railroading where it doesn’t really matter what we do cause it’s like the story has already been decided
You did a better job at making me understand this belief than others. I still believe that being a DM is like reading a choose your own adventure book where there are some predictable choices to be made and every once in awhile a player surprises you and leads you down an alternate path.
I love random tables in play, specifically tables customized for the setting and location. The results force me to improvise creatively. I'm never sure how the players will react, what they will do. There is no story-trail for them to follow or me to predict. I love sitting back at the end of a session and being amazed and wonderstruck from the story which emerged.
DMing became more fun for me when I focused on building scenarios with no expectations or obvious solutions. The stories come from my players collaborating to interact with the world
Yeah, I learned to not have the entire story arc planned out after about 3 sessions in my first campaign.
Now, I just plan out possible adventure hooks to guide the players to the story, and vaguely where it might end. Everything else is completely up to the players and the dice. Improve skills help a lot too, since at least a quarter of the time the players will go off in the opposite direction.
D&D is like an improv play. The DM sets up the scene, the players act it out. And the dice throw random weapons or rotten tomatoes at everyone.
I've only just recently started to GM, and its been an uphill battle for certain. I've run 3 short modules with my group to get my bearings and have done fairly well. But I have an issue with railroading a bit to much. I can improv well enough to get from point A to point B, but I feel like I keep saying: "Just go here" with my NPC's too often. That table you mad could be a huge help. What sorts of things should I look for in making a Encounter table like the one in the episode.
And about storytellers. The thing I've begun to learn with D&D is that it is a game of cooperative storytelling. In that, no one person is THE storyteller. The GM presents a conflict, the players construct a solution, the dice decide the outcome. Its exactly like you said. This channel has been a big help in catching bad habits before they form in my GM'ing.
Me too. I have had to unlearn bad DM habits and learn how to do it better! And this channel has really helped.
@Phoenixguild I think it's easier to fall into railroading players with a module. I am starting a new group with a module that basically says if the PCs don't take the wizards offer and get the MacGuffen (magic item), everyone dies. Now I have a couple modules that I can use so I could give the players two options so it's a bit better, but you can see how railroading could happen. I'm lucky in that my players are avowed grognarrds like me, so I don't see them refusing, but.... 😁
I like to think of myself as a "story facilitator".
Absolutely!
Wait, isn't that the same as a narrator?
@@TheLostFireWithin no, you allow a story to be told. You don’t narrate that story, you might narrate what happens as a result of the players decision. You make the story react to the ones making the choices.
I don't disagree with the Professor as to the respective roles of the GM, Players, and Dice but I do think that in order to get a nice clickbaitable video, he does oversimplify things a bit and that ultimately he also doesn't make a very convincing argument that he isn't a Story Teller.
First, GMs make backstory. There is a history that PC's enter into continuously, discovering new history as they explore. The Professor calls this "the conflict" and that's true, but it's also a story. NPC's have made actions and created plot arcs before the PC's get involved, and the players enter into these stories and begin to influence them. That's story telling no matter what you want to call it, in as much as it involves and requires the DM to have a sense of drama in order to make that backstory compelling and interesting to uncover.
The other thing is that when describing the proposition->fortune->resolution game loop, for the purposes of this video the Professor very much minimizes the roll of the GM in narrating and deciding on the resolution. It's very easy to pretend that the dice decide what happen, but even in the example the Professor gives that is not true. The dice only decide how fortunate that the player is. For example, there is nothing in the rules that explicitly tells you how to run a father trying to hug an estranged son. The dice cannot tell you how that event transpires. Only a GM can tell you that. And while the dice decided that the player was "fortunate", it was entirely up to the Professor to decide what the fortune meant and.... he railroaded player.
You see as the Professor had scripted it, it was supposed to be a fight between father and son with the expected outcome of the son dying. But the player was completely unable to change that outcome with his hug. All the dice did was change the transcript of play, but not the outcome of the scene - which still involved the father watching his son die and not really having anything to do with that outcome. The dice didn't declare that the son would jump into a bottomless pit - the Professor did.
And that's story telling. That's the Professor making a fiat decision as to what in his opinion is the most dramatic way to play out a scene, arguably at the expense of the players intentions (which seems to be to spare the life of his son).
@@celebrim1 my thoughts exactly! You should post this as a main comment and not only a response to give it more visibility
So many times I've seen the dice work magic. They're the pivot of every story. They can drastically change the course of events, but equally often they can thoroughly reinforce the narrative or the core truth of the character(s). A lot of my favorite moments from games I've played or watched are about how the dice made the story resonate. They're only tools, to be sure, but they drive the players in unexpected ways, and they give depth and a kind of legitimacy to what would otherwise be just another session of backyard make-believe.
I love making scenes. I never know what is going to happen in the boat chase while they try to deliver the wedding cake...but the players normally come up with something interesting.
The main thing I say when giving advice or speaking with the players I am DMing for, is that "the story is made at the table, not while we are sitting alone writing in notebooks." You explained it perfectly the DM provides scenarios, the players provide solutions/responses to those scenarios, and the dice and the DM adjudicate the outcome of the players' actions. The story is created through the interaction between these steps. If you want to tell a story write a book or screenplay. DnD is a story making game, not a story telling game, the distinction is extremely important.
There are no story tellers in my game, players included. I don’t think I even qualify as a story teller if I adjudicate resolutions directly, provided it’s not prescribed and I endeavour to be an impartial referee. Dice certainly help with this though :p
A story by definition has a plot, a prescribed sequence of events, which is the inverse of why the game appeals to me as both a DM and player. I play because it’s an emergent experience.
The Alexandrian’s ‘don’t prep plots’ article is a great companion to your video, which sums it up much better than I:
“Your gaming session is not a story - it is a happening. It is something about which stories can be told, but in the genesis of the moment it is not a tale being told. It is a fact that is transpiring.”
Great video!
This is why I've always preferred the term 'Referee' to Dungeon 'Master'. Referee implies a laissez-faire approach of stepping in to make the final calls and to keep the machine on the rails. The beauty of RPG's is that their collaborative story-telling experiences and it's the GROUP and the DICE that makes the game unique and fun. Great video Professor!
This is an important topic. There's a lot of new DMs trying to figure out what their role is. Having all that pressure to entertain your group with a great story will lead to burnout (I am there now). Some DMs will not come back to the table. This is great advice for us new DMs.
Good points all around. It is a bit sad, however, that there is a need to explain that.
There seems to be an implication that being a storyteller means you have to railroad the players. That simply isn't the case, though. You can improvise a story on the fly, and there's no prerequisite for it to be planned out ahead of time.
In fact, I reckon most of us engaged in freeform storytelling when we were kids. There are plenty of games where you tell a collaborative story by saying a single word or sentence and then the next person picks up from there.
An improvised story is no less of a story than one you wrote ahead of time, it just requires different skills (advance preparation versus on the fly improvisation). The fact that players have input on the outcome just means you're engaging in collaborative storytelling. To use a simple example, Tracy Hickman isn't any less of a storyteller because he co-write many books with Margaret Weis! Collaboration on stories is as old as storytelling itself.
The moment you engage in collaborative storytelling, you personally are no longer telling a story. Your job as a DM is therefore not to write a story. Your job is simply to provide the setting for the characters.
@@TheAnimeAtheist People collaborating to tell a story are all storytellers. Being a storyteller doesn't mean doing all the work yourself.
Yup, this is the Königsweg of writing adventures.
In fact, I wrote a very similar city adventure: Merchant city of Vallusa, two rival merchant houses, each supporting rival street gang factions and smuggling rings. Throw in even more political factions and my player end goal of overthrowing the evil overlord who rules the land, and you got enough material for years of campaign.
That was, until my players managed to make an enemy of every single faction in the city, and got the Inquisition on their asses. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with that particular group of characters.
Been playing for 25 years, and in all that time, I have only seen the dice as tools rather than fellow collaborators. Thank you for the insight.
Wow, I loved this advice Prof. You know, it reminded me of Critical Role and their 'end of campaign' show. The players kept asking the DM questions; what happened here, what would have happened, etc. And just as the Prof. tells us, the DM in CR did exactly that. He rolled with the rolls, he paid attention to what his players were doing and built the campaign not from a script but just notes and a willingness to go where the game takes everyone. And man, if you can get that right you will be rewarded. :)
Even the original rules described the DM as a "Referee".
Great content, back again!
I'm not sure what I call myself. I arrange the conflict, sure, but afterward, I also can't help but writing up a summary of the session. I'll typically interject mini-scenes that weren't there during the game just to improve the flow when read back.
Thanks for quality content.
Agree, I think of the dice as another player at the table, that takes the narrative to places none of the other players at the table would of taken it.
That is a COOOOL thought. +100xp for you, Seth.
Anecdote: probably the single most fun - from extended laughter volume - in a session I've DM'd was pure serendipity. One PC - the "Viking" fighter (before there were barbarians, ADD1e) - got involved in a dart game whilst his colleague, a rogue, tried to work the Inn and taproom for information. Somewhere in the midst of the competition, the Viking rolls a '1' on his dart throw; a roll for random direction results in the dart sailing into the crowd; no one will be surprised that the "attack" roll on this was a "20" - a dart right in the eye of ... well, of course, the scion of the local money laundering guild's chief. This lead to a massive bar fight; the guard being called; the enmity of the money laundering guild who hired assassins; the rest of the party working on a break-out scheme ... in other words, two follow-on sessions completely unrelated to the adventure arc (until, of course, it became intertwined later ...!). But the shear fun of the chaos and craziness - improvised weapons (chairs and spirt bottles thrown) etc. was hilarious. The catharsis of our very own Western bar brawl (or Trouble with Tribbles fight) was simply irreplaceable and I still remember the scene now almost +40 years with a grin.
Great story! Thanks for taking the time to share!
Even though our opinions don't always align, I really respect the way you approach these subjects.
Thanks, Allen!
Great to see some love for The Veiled Society. I agree that it is underappreciated, and provides lots of great ideas and a wonderful way to start an urban campaign. Looking forward to hearing more about how you run it. Keep up the great work professor!
Thanks! You will enjoy the next few episodes.
I'm a simple person.
I see PDM and I click
then I discuss with my players why we should stop using hitpoints and... then I lose my players 🙃
You're not supposed to TELL them you don't count hit points!
Worth the loss to your social HP.
This is the reason I like your content so much. You question commonly held beliefs and to make people think. And I think, seeing through one own false beliefs is the basis of all character development.
Thanks! That's what I hope to do, even if others disagree.
Couldn't agree more. The DM really only has to present a few different hooks pulling the party in different directions and then play off of the players choices. They can definitely engage in the story telling process / the stories progression by deciding what is put in front of the players but at the end of the day its finalized by the players and dice as you said.
After all, no plan/story survives contact with the party.
right at 50 seconds, YES!!! I don't tell stories, I create problems, complications, conflicts. I stir up trouble, and cause bad things to happen to innocent people. The heroes have to find solutions using their wits and whatever is on their sheet, and that struggle is the story.
So there is a video on youtube by an emmy winning screen writer who says creating conflict for the protagonist (the players in this case) is the most basic core of what story telling is. Because when there is no conflict, the story isn't very good. The only difference between what he is doing and what you describe yourself doing as DM is that he gets to decide how the protagonist reacts, you don't. I am pretty sure what you do as the DM qualifies as story telling.
A simple but brilliant thing to bring up. I feel that 90% of all issues brought up on various Reddit DnD-subs would go away if people would realize this. It’s just one: “A player died and now the group is angry”/“my players don’t agree with where my plot is going” thread after another.
PC:s die and the plot goes where the players choose to take it, it’s that simple.
Thanks, Sebastian! Please share this video on 90% of various Reddit DnD subs!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 will do professor
As a Bavarian I highly appreciate and love the Weißbier Family
And I highly appreciate my Bavarian viewership!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 What do I have to do, that you name a character from the Weißbier family "Laurenz" or the english version "Lawrence" ?
PCs should be rebranded as "Character Players" and DMs as "World Players". Character Players play the characters; World Players play the rest of the world. Together, through their combined interplay they create the story.
this is the best and shortest summation of this idea i've seen yet. thank you
That's why a lot of OSR stuff calls you a Referee
In my Colonial America Spellpunk Alt-History campaign, the characters are professional monster hunters. Many of their adventures are missions they choose from a few available, and generally they choose their next mission at the end of the session so I can build the scenario for their mission (and make it more than just go here, kill monster).
I am preparing The Veiled Society myself for the basis of an urban campaign this fall for my players. I remember it fondly because it is not the typical dungeon crawl that many some to know and expect.
2:50 - The most likely scenario for the PCs to enter the "under the floors" dungeon is through the cellar of Goodwife Thanato (marked as "5" on the map), which they just met at the inn. Not numbering the map in a way so that the text begins with the description of the chamber that the PCs are most likely to enter first, is clearly an early days oversight.
I know, but why "5." Why not "1"? It would be much clearer.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I totally agree :)
Though this confusion could be leveraged into an asset:
E.g. the PCs of my group like to enjoy themselves in taverns a lot. So I can imagine a scenario, where they are at the inn, drinking and gambling, when I just fade out the scene and let them wake up with a hangover somewhere in a dark dungeon, without recollection how they got there. One of the PCs might have some blood on his clothes and hands.
(They probably were just getting more to drink form the inns cellar, while the inn keeper was shortly absent, and stumbled into the maze before they got lost. The PC with the blood just hit his head a bit to hard down there.)
On their way out of there, they might run into the murdered nice. Without recollection of what happened, blood all over them and no alibi, there will be trouble ahead.
As a DM, I never try to force my players down a specific path, but I consider myself a storyteller as a DM nonetheless, for a few reasons.
1. I think that the world surrounding the players should be rich with stories in order to make it feel real and alive. I often am writing stories that aim to parallel the themes that are present throughout the players stories and the game overall. I’ve just recently written a whole story for the introductory town they’re in that explores what it means to be a family and what it means for that family to lose one another, which lines up with a lot of what the players have written into their stories. Family is a big theme, so I want to explore it not only through the PCs but through their NPCs who can add to that theme to make it more felt throughout.
2. I never force my players down a certain path, but a good dm can still take the actions of the players and present a world and narrative that works well to build towards the themes and the stories that the group wants to explore together.
At the end of the day, being a storyteller isn’t about railroading your players down the path you want them to go down because it fits your story, it’s about working with the group and better understanding the stories that they wish to explore in order to build a world that narratively and thematically fits that story.
Hear, hear!
Thanks for all your ideas! May all your rolls be 20's
I think it's easy to fall into Storyteller Mode because it can take a lot of story to set up the conflicts. Good reminder to step back after completing that setup work.
The story is the output/outcome from the GM and players interacting and their results of those interactions. Sounds like a great idea for a campaign Prof, love your videos!
Watched the Plot Threadz and Goblinz video and would up here thanks to the algorithm. I don't know when I realized this, but I think it was some time in the past few years. And it can be fun.
For example, I threw a goblin ambush at a the party I was running through Crypt of the Everflame, and from that one encounter, the party got a mascot/replacement rogue, some helpful information, a way to get to the Crypt fast enough to save the townsfolk that were supposed to die, and the seeds for the next adventure. None of that was planned when I threw twenty something goblins and a warg at them. (Some of the goblins escaped, but they aren't recurring villains just yet. They need to survive the next fight for me to call them that.)
Cool! Thanks for sharing!
So, out of the three types of DMs - score keeper (you roll dice and tally numbers only), tour guide (you say "here you are, guy sells you this the person tells you that"), and story teller (describes the sights and smells, narrates what people do and how the action looks and feels, and even runs dialog for the NPCs while players actually role play) - which do you prefer?
Note: I left out the book writer (the railroader who gives no choice and never gives the players any agency).
I’m all of them. I feel like a passive observer, watching a story unfold. & sometimes it’s weird & unexpected.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 But you are still a storyteller. You tell the story that is unfolding, not controlling it. Traditionally storytellers are merely those that tell other's stories, the Bard, the reporter, they didn't tell the knight or warrior or politician or average person what to do or where to go (though to watch the news today, maybe reporters have changed their goal somewhat).
So my point is I don't buy the premise of the video, only because you define storytelling incorrectly. I do agree with the content.
*sick techno-beat*
“DEATHBRINGER is killing it - on the dance floor!” 😄🕺
You know it.
One of the few takes that you get absolutely right. DM only provides the setting not the story. The characters direct the narrative, the dice give us the results, and everyone works together to make the descriptions and complete the process. This is how d&d works.
Yes, you create situations, the players interact with them and story develops from there when the dice roll.
Thanks for the advice, we’re resuming after a couple of months off. I’ve been stressing about how to prepare since it can go so many directions.
Create a random adventure or two and let me know how it works out!
I ran this less than a year ago using the Rules Cyclopedia. I ran it staight up Mystara in Specularum. I padded it out to like six sessions, and used the Radu family as a segway to Isle of Dread.
Cool idea!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I kicked off the campaign with a Miami Vice vibe, the Radus were smuggling drugs from the island, and the party found the Barbarossa map in Radu's office.
It is like you said, I try to only plan a session or two ahead of time. I had left several strings scattered about. They could have followed leads that would have taken them to the Keep on the Borderlands or Nights Dark Terror.
But I am glad they picked Isle of Dread!
@@markfaulkner8191 - Does that mean you're going to drop a native drug cartel into Isle Of Dread?
@@NefariousKoel Zzanga, as described in the Dawn of the Emperors. I am really into nerding out on Mystara and old campaign Gazetteers. I also tossed in Sippopa, from the indi module Lapis Observatory, which I placed on the island. I also used material from the Goodman games HC, converted into Basic (the old material was already in that format, it was just the new material I converted).
There are still some loose threads from all of that, but that got overshadowed by the political struggle between the different sentient groups. Tanaroa is now the capitol of the Imperial Zeb Republic.
The Veiled Society (Radu family) is the major cartel in this situation, and they are still a factor in the campaign.
@@markfaulkner8191 - Ah. Was wondering if you modified something like a Rakasta tribe running the production end or wotnot. Sounds like you've got some Mystara fun set up!
I do agree the GM fancying themselves a storyteller is taking away from the players' contribution/agency, I usually intro new players to D&D as "A collaborative storytelling game".
Ive been waiting for this episode since you mentioned it a while back. Im of the Cult of the Dice. I make my players roll for everything. Not so much as a pass/fail test, but so we all can see how they pass/fail. Adventure is always around the corner, when theres a chance to roll a 1. :o)
You present story ELEMENTS. Then like Dungeon World says, "play to find out what happens".
Yes.
I hear what you're saying, the dice definitely determine the outcome of an encounter quite heavily; but the fact of the matter is that the dice only determine the *direction* of the results. In your example you said your player rolled a Nat20 to hug his son instead of fighting him, and then he jumped into a hole. The dice never said in any way that he had to make that jump; he could've chosen to try to stay alive and attone for his actions. He could have tried to run and hide from the world to avoid facing the shame his actions brought about his family name.
Ultimately yes, the dice do determine the outcome of every single encounter, but as a DM *you* are the one that interprets what the results of the dice mean. In this respect, in addition to being a narrator of sorts to begin with, the DM is very much a storyteller; it just isn't a predetermined storyline.
I think there's a difference between storytelling and story creating. The players, dice, and DM all create the story together, but I'd contend that the DM is still the one tasked with telling most of that story and so is the primary storyteller at the table.
I learned this back in the day. We used to run through modules and it was fun and I used to run entirely home campaigns -- pick a random Greyhawk hex, and you start there. Same thing... make up no more than a single session and do a lot of on-the-fly work. Then Dragonlance came out and "It's not the DM's story" was so true as the modules were unplayable because they were so scripted. Realized... single session plan was better.
One of my best campaigns was exactly this way. I made up a single session ahead and would just end each session with "Where are you going next?" and then write up the next weeks. Yet, the story was so organic that at the end everyone thought the entire eight month plot was written out. Towards the end, the players had established what they were going to do and the rest just fell into place. The final bad guy was a diviner, so I had gave him diary (10 actual pages typed) basically recapping everything the PCs did for the last months and how he "foiled" them at various points, misled them, and finally had to deal with them. Everyone assumed the entire plot was pre-written.
Over a decade later, I tried running the campaign again. It didn't seem organic, it was obvious where people needed to go/to, etc. Still a great campaign -- now nicely written out, better maps, great encounters, etc. -- but I spent a lot of time telling people how the original group handled things. In the end, it was their campaign.
You gave me a great idea for session zero. Set up the group dynamic and get the players onboard as to where they interested in going to start. Then every meeting they set the focus for the next game. Nice idea.
Instant "Like", just from the title alone before even watching the whole video!
A great video as always and looks like a pretty good campaign you’re running in there, I can’t wait to see more videos about the veiled society, gonna read it, maybe I’m gonna include some parts in my ongoing campaign too.
DM’s are story tellers and so are players but I respect your opinion and know the point you’re making.
I agree with your point of view here. The DM is responsible for creating the setting, factions, villains, monsters, obstacles, etc. which create opportunities for stories to develop organically. Sometimes it's more fun to let the dice generate some of the settings. Although, I have always been very creative in designing maps and complexes, I'm also a big fan of Appendix A in the DMG. Even something generated randomly can inspire whole adventure plots.
Thanks for taking the time to comment!
"Respect the dice. The Dice are what is true." Words to live by.
making dice rolls in public is SUPER important imho. I was honestly surprised after GMing for several years, always rolling in the open (because it never occurred to me to roll hidden dice) that some GMs roll in secret and then lie about the results. If you roll dice in secret and then change the result to steer the story in a way you as a GM want it to go, why even roll in the first place?
Good Deathbringer outro. That was funny. I love that one of his major flaws is bad hearing. It makes for lots of good jokes.
That is like saying the art director and set design director are not storytellers. Everybody is telling the the story, but you are working as the background of the story. Hence you our stake in the story because you are doing more makes you the key storyteller. You are playing everybody save for the improv that might happen by the actors to develop the story, but the DM is the key stakeholder in the story. And is the biggest storyteller of them all. Unless, you never ask for a die roll, you are a director. Your directing them in methods of probability on how a story will play out, which makes every DM the key storyteller. When a die roll die roll does not go your way, it’s an editor asking for a rewrite. No story is written without rewrites, which makes the DM the key storyteller because with every die roll he is asking for rewrites to play out so he can story tell them to his audience. Some rewrites are just harder to make then others. Either way, the DM is the key storyteller. Good stuff! And good sir, I beg to differ on your point.
I literally can't tell if what I'm doing is railroading or not now.
Hey professor Dungeon Master. I totally agree. I've had my campaign take a turn to seek out a powerful cleric to raise 3 dead characters, 2 players and 1 npc. Because one of the survivors was falling in love with one that died. They had to work against time as in my game gentle repose gets less effective with subsequent casting. So the logistical problem of carrying 3 bodies plus gear was a joy to run. The characters that died rolled new characters that later became villains to the players due to the choices the players made.
I'm not a crafter myself, but I'd love to see a video about crafting the demon behind Deathbringer. Since it is a near perfect replica from the AD&D phb.
He's a 3-D print given to me by a patron. Search him out! Someone is selling him on Etsy.
I am the patron PDM mentioned. Here is a link to the 3D file. If you have or know someone with a 3D printer you can have your very own! www.thingiverse.com/thing:3984055
I think you went off on a small tangent, but I agree with you. At the end of every session, the party tells me where they are going next and I prep the information and try to make sure it will have game elements to satisfy everyone's play style. My prep is about having details about the scene, the objectives and the obstacles for them to discover, use and overcome. I don't bother figuring out how they will solve them, because I am usually wrong and their ideas are usually better. I also don't "metagame" my players and alter anything because I know they have an ability, magic item or spell that could nullify it. I hope they do! The dice and the players tell the story, I just connect the scenes and setup rewards and consequences. I like to reward them and have older decisions pay off. If they say or do something interesting that could have lingering effects, I make note of those so they can come back around in the future. eg. "My name is Inigo Montoya..." lol
That is a really nice tie! Classy...and that's about all I can say off the cuff. You've given me a lot to think about. The main idea is that a broad-brush world-building (Grim-dark, vaguely German, old-school Grimm's Fairy-Tales) with a series of general characters (Munchberger family et all) a few Solid NPC cast members, and then a general chart of rolled encounters is enough for good games.
The nit-picky room by room dungeon, scads of monsters and a Big Evil Boss is not required. So different from 1980's D&D.
I've got Village of Hommlet and a new group of players to experiment on...I mean with...very interesting!
The story emerges from what happens in the game.
This reminds me of how sculptors often say that the image is already in the stone, they are just uncovering it.
I think my favorite moment was when a Wizard was exploring a dungeon and opened a door into a room of enemies whom were playing poker.
The player freaked out but she asked if she could join the poker game. I laughed my ass off as the GM. I rolled some dice and made the enemies feel neutral to the Wizard.
It was supposed to be another dungeon room to start combat. Instead, I got to reveal large bits of info I have been dying to reveal.
They played Poker and it became a role play moment of the minions revealing the name of the boss, the fact they dont get paid overtime, and the Wizard won pocket change.
That player always likes to bring it up and made a new character based on Gambit from the X-Men. A magical warrior that loves to gamble. (In the different campaign, he usually gambled her adventuring rewards. It made for a fun subplot of debt collectors chasing the character).
Great way to build each session! Im curious, can you explain a little more about the "time limit" in the random urban scenario generator ?
I ran a LARP years ago with a "storyteller" who wrote scenarios that included assumptions about HOW and WHEN the players would do things, and what they would do and THINK, which would inevitably lead to the next step of his scenario.
The rest of us on the plot committee had to patiently ask him what he had planned for each step when the players DIDN'T do things exactly as he had planned.
Well, when the time to run his plotline came, the players did exactly the "wrong" things and got him very frustrated. The players had fun, the people playing the NPCs had fun. Because we stepped in behind this guy's back and adjusted things on the fly.
I don’t think GMs are Storytellers, they are Story Enablers. They enable the party to tell their PCs story.
I agree.
100%. I like to think of myself as a "facilitator" or a "guide". I also feel that there *is* no story until after the session. Those tales get told over and over again for years and years. That is why a good death is better than a game where everyone wins.
@@markfaulkner8191
The story is created by all players together
Really good choice of words. I like that approach
Instead of being called Game Masters, they should be called Game Enablers, or GEs
*General Electric has entered the chat*
Never mind, back to GMs.
*General Motors has enter-*
AW C'MON!!!!
Yes,so we'll said- that vest has an advantage besides it's bonus, doesn't it. Thanks for keeping the game real! Love you campaign! You are inspiring my upcoming one!
Phanastic! I love to see more videos from Dungeon Craft for sure.
Eventually, even Prof. DM rolls a '1'. Yes, in a collaborative environment, a DM can and should create situations and have the players (and partly the dice) resolve them, but a DM can and should ALSO weave those things into a some form of cohesive whole which is a story.
Put differently, Player agency and dice decide if and how the PCs find and recover the McGuffin, but don't create the McGuffin, the world where the McGuffin is buried or why the McGuffin is, in fact, a McGuffin. That's the job of the DM to tell that story.
All that said, thanks for the video and I'm interested to see your next one. Also? Really like the vest. :)
Thumbs up simply for emphasizing "you must respect the dice"
Also good vid all round.
The Veiled Society module is a free download FYI.
My most recent game, DMing, I had intended all enemies, including a 10 year old boy, to have intellect devourers in them. Their strong hope for a necklace, belonging to the now dead and former intellect devoured grandmother, could possibly be the answer to a spell and NOT an intellect devourer. Their desire, ideas, and hope changed my mind on the son's role as an NPC. NOT just another victim, but another person saved.
I use cards from Call to Adventure to create places the party visit
You can call me lazy, but I play for the gameplay. Plus it makes the game interesting and random, and allows me to play along as a mute npc who doesnt speak or find puzzle solutions and doesnt carry the party, only supports a little as a bard.
Vest is lookin' sharp as always, Prof.
Thank you. My friend Madeline got that one for me.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Whoa whoa... so this new vest is +2 eh? mmM upgrades.
The players interact with your content, they tell you what they try to do and you tell them what happens. That makes you a storyteller. +2 vest foiled.
No, they tell me what they try to do.
How good they try vs how good the NPCS etc do tell what happens, followed ho they handle it...
@@thodan467 - That's what I said. They tell you (the DM) what they want to do, and you tell them what happens...
@@sleepinggiant4062
I think we mean the same but use different words for the use of dice and interpret storyteller very differently
Truth. I try to give players several possible story-lines (shiny hooks, that is) to pursue, and leave things open enough to improvise if they go off on an unexpected tangent (which they often do), or if the dice themselves throw a monkey wrench in the works (all too likely). I'm currently setting up a quasi-sandbox with a long-term story arc the players MIGHT pursue as they gather clues... and other branches and side-quests if they go off the rails... but I'm sure they'll surprise me a few times anyway.
The Dice are the other player in the game. I switched to a system where the GM rolls no dice. But, when I did roll dice, it was on the table; the suspense was part of the metagame, and an experienced GM will use the meta. I really like your philosophy of planning only the next session - you never know what the players will do! I've found that planning anything more leads to burn-out. I also incorporate pre-made modules and even campaigns into the mix, simmering and stirring as the situation suits. Using pre-written material, I don't have to worry too much about main ingredients, and can add my own spices to suit the taste of my players. - the original writers have done that bit of work for me. (I've found the most success running things that way, other's experiences may vary). As GMs, all we do is set a stage, toss in the extras, and maybe drag in a main character once in a while. The other players, and the dice, are the stars of the show.
Rewatching this for the third or forth time. Always gold!
Killer vidya Prof. +2! +2!? Your vest has been upgraded sir!
Great video. Good content and you are coming off smoother in your videos and presentation. Not that you weren't good before but I think recently you must have leveled...