How much plot do people want?

[Seraphim73]

@Darinelle said in How much plot do people want?:

1. GM Buy-in
2. Player Buy-in
3. Communication.
4. Trust.
   I like telling a story together. It's my favorite part of MUing.

Yes. Just, so much all of this. Nicely put. As to your post a bit later, I think that "world-changing" doesn't have to mean that the whole world is changed by your actions, just that some corner of it is. That's a big part of why I play, for example: to see the impact my characters make on the world and on other characters (and the impact that the world and those other characters have on them in turn).

@Sparks said in How much plot do people want?:

I would say that having a concrete goal for your character is also key.

I think that this is spectacular advice for ANY character on ANY game. It doesn't even have to be a goal that they can achieve. In fact, in many ways it's better if you have one overarching goal that you know they will never achieve, with micro-goals beneath it to let them (and you) feel like they're making progress toward that main goal.

You don't have to have a goal at chargen, sometimes it takes some time to figure out what your character wants to do (or what you want your character to do), but having a goal to work towards helps so much in making sure that you aren't stuck in neutral with just bar scenes to keep you busy.

I also don't think, as @Arkandel mentioned, that your character has to be laser-focused on doing a single thing... but having an overarching goal that they are working towards can be incredibly grounding when you're flailing around, not sure exactly what they should b edoing.

[Sparks]

I should clarify that I mean my character is laser focused on one specific slice of metaplot. She does other stuff too, but she isn't going to go chasing after other metaplot threads just of her own accord unless people drag her in. She has a specific plot thread that she is engaged in.

My other character is presently very interrupt driven; someone brings her a thing from plot A, so she looks into plot A, but then a thing happens in plot B, and someone asks her help, but then someone comes with details of plot C and asks if she's heard anything... she doesn't end up contributing a lot to any of those individual plots right now, because she's not really engaged wholly in any of them.

[Misadventure]

@sparks It sounds like having something that determines a clue either is your focus, or isn't, acts to reduce analysis paralysis.

[Roz]

@Arkandel said in How much plot do people want?:

@Sparks said in How much plot do people want?:

Focusing on a specific goal is always great for character motivation, but it's particularly useful on games with multiple plots running like Arx.

I mean to each their own, but I avoid playing characters that focused on that one thing, not because I find it's limiting to my roleplay but because it doesn't lend itself to three-dimensional characters. If I had PC obsessive to that degree I would need to go in fully aware I'm actually playing someone who has issues, and although that can be rewarding on its own, it isn't something I would choose to do as a general principle.

I think there's a difference between having a very clear focus and having a PC obsessed with one thing and one thing only.

[bored]

@Arkandel said in How much plot do people want?:

The TV show model should still be applicable here. On TV their formula is one-third long meta-arcs, two thirds shorter duration stuff, so that regular viewers have something to look forward to but newcomers get the chance to be hooked into the day to day events.

I think this is really spot on and the most succinct explanation of how you want to structure plots, and also a good look at how most games fail (because most do, when it comes to plot, meta or otherwise - these things wouldn't be so infamous/unicorn status-y if people did them right more commonly). It almost always veers too hard one way or another. Either it's a sandbox and nothing matters long term, or everything is doom doom doom, to the point where it's trivial.

When there IS metaplot, the buildup/resolution is poorly balanced. Entry level storytelling is disregarded and basically left to the players, which leads to the inevitable case of a few indispensable people holding all the keys and the newbie role being to suck up to them to get clued in, and maybe if they're nice dragged along to watch them solve the plot' Lead-up tends to either be nonexistent or mostly irrelevant filler: if there are prelude steps, they either won't affect the outcome much and are just time-wasters until the inevitable 'everyone shows up and the dice god dinos make the bigbad go away', which is usually the only relevant scene to the outcome of the whole plot.

STs everywhere need to learn how to do something other than all-or-nothing. Short arcs that are widely accessible, even to new players, that feel like they have meaningful outcomes even if the scale is small. If you're doing a big metaplot, it's probably better if people are only even vaguely aware of it, and that when it finally rears its head, there has been plenty of diverse lead-ins heading toward a fairly timely resolution: you don't want to get bogged down in it. Nothing takes the impact out of metaplot than the big doom looming so long that looming doom becomes status quo.

[Thenomain]

@Sparks said in How much plot do people want?:

I would say that having a concrete goal for your character is also key.

My primary Arx alt does not, at least not one that can be easily worked towards right now[...]

Fair, but:

Conversely, my second alt is laser focused on one very specific small slice of metaplot

Something that has always stopped me in my tracks when playing a new game is that I don't know what's going on, and so making a character that's in-line with the game is very difficult. It doesn't always matter how focused I am if the game does not share that focus.

I love making scouting and crafting types. The former requires discovering something to scout (falling into it) or being told what to scout (falling into quick allies). The latter requires either a crafting system that's more than just MMO-style levelling-up-your-materials, or enough dithering-around time that I can feel like I'm involved in something else while doing so.

Point being, it's not just enough to be focused. God knows this board has been filled with complaints about people being mis-aligned with the game, and this includes Arx (players and staff).

So, yes. Be focused, but that's not going to guarantee anyone a win. It will help, and I'll bandy about with you to go as far as critical (there, we just had the discussion and agreed on it ;), but don't expect that to be enough. Luck or inner knowledge play a huge role in it too.

[Taika]

Thinking on it, I like when people pitch ideas.

'Hey wouldn't it be cool if...?'
'Couldn't we do something about that thing there?'

I enjoy ST'ing all sorts of stories, but sometimes, coming up with them can be rough on a tired brain. I also think sitting down and telling staff or st's 'hey, I'm interested in Y and Z types of plot, but X is kind of meh for me' is really helpful, too.

I also run into not knowing how characters respond unless I play with them often is a hinderance, too. I'll usually run a quick-n-dirty or two to feel out how someone thinks and reacts before trying to throw out more'complex' or less combatty-more-thinky plots.

tl'dr - tell staff and st's what turns you on, or toss ideas around with them.

[Lisse24]

@Taika Isn't that kind of the purpose of goals? (assuming you're using CoD). Players set their priority and what interests them and what they'd like to see happen. Although, not every goal needs STing...

[Darinelle]

@Taika said in How much plot do people want?:

Thinking on it, I like when people pitch ideas.

'Hey wouldn't it be cool if...?'
'Couldn't we do something about that thing there?'

I enjoy ST'ing all sorts of stories, but sometimes, coming up with them can be rough on a tired brain. I also think sitting down and telling staff or st's 'hey, I'm interested in Y and Z types of plot, but X is kind of meh for me' is really helpful, too.

I also run into not knowing how characters respond unless I play with them often is a hinderance, too. I'll usually run a quick-n-dirty or two to feel out how someone thinks and reacts before trying to throw out more'complex' or less combatty-more-thinky plots.

tl'dr - tell staff and st's what turns you on, or toss ideas around with them.

One thing I really love about Arx as a GM is the +storyrequest feature. Sometimes it results in a STing scene, sometimes in a GM saying "hey, you've interacted with this NPC that you don't normally have access to, and here's what you learned. It's good for multiple reasons:

1 - It lets players tell GMs what they are interested in doing with their characters
2 - It lets GMs pick things to ST, and gives us ideas.
3 - It lets players who need to know things from a specific NPC ask the questions without having to sit through Q&A sessions, which is also a boon for GMs
4 - It lets players advance their characters in thematic, direct ways without having to share their secrets with all and sundry looking for a STer.

There's a similar +prprequest feature I think which I ALSO love, because players who want to run plot can say - "hey, I want to do this thing, is it thematic?" And then the GMs can be aware of PRPs, and weave them into the story/metaplot if they want, and give out plot hooks and secrets to the PRP-runner to include in the course of their story.

Togethery, they give players agency and give GMs knowledge to include in the overarching story, which turns things into a more cohesive world. It's not a perfect system, but I'm a big fan of things that let players interact with the world in a meaningful way and also have parts in the story and build stories for each other. Not everything has to be a major GM-driven plot. Sometimes what players come up with is cooler.

[Ganymede]

@Lisse24 said in How much plot do people want?:

@Taika Isn't that kind of the purpose of goals? (assuming you're using CoD). Players set their priority and what interests them and what they'd like to see happen. Although, not every goal needs STing...

You mean "aspirations," right?

Neither short-term nor long-term aspirations really tell an ST what you're into. For example, if you have the long-term aspiration of "becoming Prince of the City," that does not tell me if you intend to accomplish this socially, mentally, or physically. I can probably guess from your sheet how you plan to do it, but the aspiration alone tells me very little.

And even if you do want to explore a certain kind of RP, how am I to know what it is? How do I know if you like small intimidate scenes over large social ones? Are you a builder or a destabilizer, as a political animal? How do you, the player, deal with NPCs and PCs?

And so on.

Aspirations belong to the PC too, not the player. The player may be well-aware that a PC will never be Prince -- the News Files state, for example, that the Prince will always be an NPC -- but that does not make the aspiration invalid.

I still see some worth in +pitch for plots.

[Lisse24]

@Ganymede Aspirations, goals. Same diff when you haven't finished a cup of coffee yet!

[Arkandel]

@Taika said in How much plot do people want?:

Thinking on it, I like when people pitch ideas.

'Hey wouldn't it be cool if...?'
'Couldn't we do something about that thing there?'

Yeah, but they won't. It's the very rare player who'll actually suggest things they want ran which involve them; most will just know whether it works for them or not after you've already done it.

Another sad fact is the type of player who does know what they want are often very... particular about it. I had someone ask me to run a PrP for their Legacy a while ago for example, and their request was basically a step by step guide of everything that should happen in that PrP. Dude, that's a script, what do you need me for?

[Darinelle]

Also, regarding Gany's support for +pitch - I don't want you to tell me what you want to do in broad terms. I want you to give me an idea of how you want to accomplish this.

+Aspiration - end, character goal, unreachable or not

Then +pitch me - hey, with this aspiration, the first step my char wants to take is <blah>.

Let that happen, then take what comes of that, and make another +pitch later that says, "okay, this aspiration is still true, so I want to take this next step of <blah>."

Having a long term aspiration that NEVER CHANGES and CAN NEVER BE AFFECTED BY ROLEPLAY is only good when the aspiration is achievable. Sometimes it's just not - so maybe let that change as the story goes, but pitch tells me what you want to do now. If you say "I want to be Prince of the City" I don't necessarily want to have to create a plot for you that has a chance of success, because what if 10 players have that as their aspiration? Do I have to GM a PK plot? Do I have to GM plots where you are destined to fail and have no way to succeed? That's terrible STing, IMO. So +pitch the steps along the way, and if through those steps it's not feasible for your character, maybe aspirations change or maybe you die trying.

Aspirations can be totally unrealistic, but what I never want as a GM is to walk into a story and be forced to tell one with no win condition. That's miserable for everyone in the end, because the players never had a chance to get what they want, and so it's just all futile and no one wins then. It feels a lot like punishing players. (note - scenes that SEEM like total failures but which forward plot in different ways are fine, but if you know going into it that the players are going to lose and not do anything meaningful, then just resolve it in a ticket without wasting time.)

[Arkandel]

@Darinelle I think Aspirations shouldn't need to be successful (or failed), only resolved.

For example maybe your long-term aspiration is to become Prince. You work toward it, you might even get within shot of it, and then monsters attack! Upheaval! Half the Primogen are dead! The Praxis moves on to a new government under completely different conditions than before, so now maybe your goal isn't so much abandoned or failed as it is... settled. Whatever the character had to reap out of that should be reaped, and they can move on.

Especially in MU* it should never be about the destination, it ought to always be about the road there. As long as aspirations serve their purpose that's all you can ask from a mechanic.

[ThatGuyThere]

I don't see aspirations as necessarily needing to be resolved. The one time I made a character for 2ed ed, I instead made them the driving forces of my character.
Some were pretty short term some longer, but one was most definitely never going to be resolved. I was playing a ghoul and one of the aspirations was to be a valued servant to the vampire. I claimed beats for it in scenes where I both succeeded in serving well or learned from failures to accomplish what I was told, but resolution at least for that aspiration would not have been possible really baring death of the PC or vamp in question.

[Lisse24]

Yeah, I'm ceding the point on aspirations. It was early and that was just the first thing that sprung to mind.

+storyrequest is probably a better model.

[Darinelle]

@Arkandel I don't see them as necessarily having to get resolved, but they shouldn't be fixed forevermore if the character's life or perspectives change. My opinion on this is probably largely related to my admittedly limited experience with MUs in general, in that if you play a character for actual, RL years at some point unreasonable goals are probably going to become evident to a character, and in that case it's either a "welp, that sucks, let's do something different" moment or a "welp, that sucks, guess I'm kind of stagnant and stuck" moment instead. I prefer the former to the latter.

I'm not saying they have to be 100% realized all the time, but while the journey is important, walking on a treadmill isn't really that fulfilling an activity to do for years and years either.

[Taika]

I do have a system called +plots. It's basically a way to toss out plots staff wants run, or ideas players pitch. It's pretty neat. I found on a site that had a repository of code (not github). It's inelegant, but I added some things and made tweaks (like +plot/add posts to a bboard like +events does, so they can work in tandem.).

Sounds like the hard part might be getting people to play the 'what if' game to chat up ideas and inspirations for plots, or encourage people to request plots.

Though, getting handed a pre-written script to ST would suck. I won't do it I like keeping people on their toes a bit.