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Champion
 
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Marios (4/25/2008)
John Newton (4/25/2008)
You have to understand 'character-driven' in opposition to 'plot-driven' (or 'story-led' as some folk call it).
Non-player characters are characters too.
As a distinction between whether the PC/NPCs choose their actions based on the IC goals of their character or their OOC goals (some sense of what they believe would be best for the 'story')?
That could be one way of looking at it.
The most obvious example of a plot-driven game would be the traditional linear adventure, in which the action takes place in a series of encounters designed to provide a dramatic structure to the game. Or a weekend event in which the big bad guy appears on Friday, the quest for the magic tin-opener takes place on Saturday, and the final showdown takes place on the Sunday.
I still don't think a "plot-driven" "player-led" game makes a great deal of sense (without redefining plot in such a way as to lose anything gained by moving away from plot/story-driven):
"A Plot-driven story starts with a pre-determined sequence of actions (or scenes or encounters)"
"Player-led story, the Players control the protagonists and their actions"
See my previous post for an example of a player-led, plot-driven adventure.
Equally, "character-driven" "organiser-led" only makes sense if you redefine "control" to mean writing the background/goals/motivations.
'Control' could mean a number of things - e.g., in a number of systems, NPCs are not allowed to kill PCs, thus putting a restriction on their choice of actions.
Or you could interpret the word 'organiser' to include all non-playing (non-paying?) crew members, not just the writers - i.e. is the protagonist a PC or a NPC?
An example of organiser-led, character-driven action would be many of the central plots of Omega. In that campaign, there were a number of NPC protagonists provided with backgrounds, resources, and basic goals, who were then free to decide what to do. These NPCs generally did not know what the other NPCS were up to. And there was no plot structure or timetabling to the events .
____________________
"Fantasy is the artificial sweetener upon the poisoned cake of materialism." - R. J. Stewart
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Wag
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John Newton (4/25/2008)
See my previous post for an example of a player-led, plot-driven adventure.
Those examples all sounded ref-led and player-reactive (it's not entirely clear, but I got the impression that the players want to kill Duke Hanro because of some ref-plot in the first adventure - if they want to kill him because they don't like his face/they reckon he might have a lot of cash then it's player-led).
John Newton (4/25/2008)
'Control' could mean a number of things - e.g., in a number of systems, NPCs are not allowed to kill PCs, thus putting a restriction on their choice of actions.
Or you could interpret the word 'organiser' to include all non-playing (non-paying?) crew members, not just the writers - i.e. is the protagonist a PC or a NPC?
I'm not arguing that you can't force the criteria to apply by redefining the terms appropriately in each case, I'm just saying that having to do that makes it feel like it's not a terribly natural set of categories.
John Newton (4/25/2008)
An example of organiser-led, character-driven action would be many of the central plots of Omega. In that campaign, there were a number of NPC protagonists provided with backgrounds, resources, and basic goals, who were then free to decide what to do. These NPCs generally did not know what the other NPCS were up to. And there was no plot structure or timetabling to the events.
Again, this reminds me (on a much different scale) of PvM events I've run/been involved with at DUTT (trying to make your Ms as autonomous as possible, trying to lower the ref-plot 'volume' as much as possible).
This is what I'd view as 'flexible' story-led plot - I may be biased by the fact that I only attended the last game, but I think that the volume of story plot was greater than that of the player-lead activity so a useful description for someone who was thinking of attending "Omega II: The Replica" would be that it's a very hands off story-led game.
Marios
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Wag
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John Newton (4/25/2008)
Or a weekend event in which the big bad guy appears on Friday, the quest for the magic tin-opener takes place on Saturday, and the final showdown takes place on the Sunday.
You should copyright that, you'll make pounds. Especially that bit about the tin-opener... 
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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Wag
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Nath (4/25/2008)
I say to Matt: 'Suggest a character for me to play'
Personally I think this point is quite interesting. In a very real sense, PD do suggest a character for everyone to play at Maelstrom because we give people a campaign book and say "Here's your background". At what point does that make the characters a product of the organizers rather than the players?
One of the criticisms of Maelstrom a while back was that the conflict between the Malathians and the Kamakurans wasn't really player-led because we'd written it into the background and the players were just roleplaying it out. Actually we hadn't done anything of the sort, we wrote the Fidelians as the traditional Malathian enemy, but it could have been true and the fact it wasn't doesn't invalidate the idea.
Personally I think the difference comes in setting goals. Saying "most Malathians hate tea drinkers" is very different to saying your character hates tea drinkers, you should act accordingly. In the former the player chooses to pick up some of the conflicts that have been preconstructed, in the latter he is just elbowed into it. Ironically of course if you take the viewpoint (which I don't) that everybody should play a normal member of their background description and anyone who doesn't is a bad man, then this would invalidate this freedom.
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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Wag
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Marios (4/25/2008)
I think this is what Matt P means by "player reactive plot" and it's what I would call responsive story-led plot.
Yes, although I've never liked the term story-led because I don't like the notion of anything leading my players except other players. I prefer to think of story-driven, a story which drives the players to act, rather than leading them to it. But I think that is a subtlety of distinction aside from what we're discussing here.
Since I've not really seen anyone championing the idea that story-led plot should be unresponsive it seems unnecessary to have separate word for "responsive/reactive" story-led plot, unless you're describing some particularly mechanism for making it more responsive.
I am led to believe that this performance is a truly excellent example of a piece of deliberately unresponsive story-led LRP. I haven't seen it, but the little I know of it suggests that it makes full use of the many advantages that unresponsiveness can bring to an event (you can have a much better plot when you don't have to involve players in it, better dramatic timing and tension, better dialogue and so forth). The LRPers I know who went said it was a fantastic game. Although I admit they might have called it a performance.
I'm interested in the value of unresponsiveness in LRP.
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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Wag
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Matt Pennington (4/25/2008)
You should copyright that, you'll make pounds. Especially that bit about the tin-opener...
Bad methodology! Disallow player provisions or onsite catering, hide a few cans of food on monsters and by the second night all can-openers will have become magic items and the final showdown can be a race between Dysentery and possession of The Last Toilet Roll.
Matt Pennington (4/25/2008)
Ironically of course if you take the viewpoint (which I don't) that everybody should play a normal member of their background description and anyone who doesn't is a bad man, then this would invalidate this freedom.
I've seen people argue that "open background" systems are 'more' player-led than closed background systems - but then I've also attended open background systems and that doesn't seem to be the case.
I think the point is that if you don't have a system background then the default isn't Fidelia/Kamakura, it's 20th century England, which doesn't really make it any _more personal_ to the player. You can't _not_ create a character background within some social context. No social context and it's suddenly very hard to construct a character with any goals distinct from 20th century England (get 20 mates, create a closed background between you, live in that background and try to impose it on anyone you bump into!).
Matt Pennington (4/25/2008)
Yes, although I've never liked the term story-led because I don't like the notion of anything leading my players except other players. I prefer to think of story-driven, a story which drives the players to act, rather than leading them to it. But I think that is a subtlety of distinction aside from what we're discussing here.
Okay, I can see that (story creates pressures which characters relieve however). Again, I think the problem with the Story Matrix is that it doesn't really distinguish between games where you story exists to drive the normal roleplay activity of the game (keep the ants moving/rubbing their antennae against eachother) and explicitly Narrative games where the story is the purpose - 'rules', 'games', 'winning/losing', 'IC goals' are all irrelevant concepts because all those involved should only be trying to 'advance the narrative'.
I've never really been to a game that actually worked like that so I don't know if they really, actually exist in that fashion - but people claim they do and there's no particular reason to deny it. However, since they start by rejecting all the concepts with which you might compare such a game with another game it seems fruitless to try to include them inside some matrix rather than just saying "Narrative".
Matt Pennington (4/25/2008)
I am led to believe that this performance is a truly excellent example of a piece of deliberately unresponsive story-led LRP.
I'm told they interact with people, but the guy I know who has been to a load of them isn't a larper and thus doesn't have the honed instincts for recognising artful railroading.
Matt Pennington (4/25/2008)
I'm interested in the value of unresponsiveness in LRP.
The advantages you listed - also, notably, kit/costume/props. If your plot is more or less unresponsive in anything bar a superficial sense then suddenly high investment props can make a lot of sense - highly responsive plot is the death of amazing set scenes and one-used props.
Moreover, it's egalitarian. Like a jaded hooker who just doesn't care anymore, everyone gets their fair serving of unresponsive plot - but responsive plot? Squeals and moans for some players, corrosive sympathy and a promise to try again in a quarter of an hour for other players.
Marios
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Prodigal
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| In some sense, players always have a final say over the character they play, and can choose to leave if they don't like it. (I know of one case where a larp was overbooked with a waiting list, and player decided not to go because the character they were assigned didn't grab them and they knew someone else would fill the slot). Equally I hope in any larp the organiser always as at least a veto of the character the player players. I did hear that Andy Leech once said it's let someone play in a Mr. Blobby costume if they paid for a player place, which I think is a good example of why this should be the case. Character creation is always a spectrum between two extremes, with both 'stakeholders' have a final veto. To my mind, this doesn't make the game more or less PC-led. Last year I wrote a small Ars Magica larp for a con, which I've now run 3 times with 3 different player groups. All the characters are prewritten, with their primary IC goal explicitly stated. How it turned out each time was completely different, because of how the players intrepreted and acted upon their situation. As the saying goes, no plot survives contact with the players. I regard it as pc-led - there are no NPCs or external elements. Whether it's story-driven or not is down whether the players themselves are story-driven or not.
------ <insert really amusing sig here>
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Wag
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Nath (4/26/2008)
Character creation is always a spectrum between two extremes, with both 'stakeholders' have a final veto. To my mind, this doesn't make the game more or less PC-led.
By the definition you've supplied, a scripted PvM monster encounter would be PC-led because monsters have the option of walking when and as they feel like it (and I'm sure they'll give distinct 'performances' each time if you vary the people doing the monstering) - if we're not going to call them NPCs/monsters because simply because they have scripts (which they could have vetoed or potentially proposed alterations to) then all games are pc-led because there's technically no such thing as an NPC/monster.
On those grounds, I'm inclined to think that "PC-led" isn't very informative (any more than the Democratic in The Democratic Republic of the Congo).
Marios
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