City Creation sets up for a proactive campaign, adventure advice seems reactive?

[WadeL]

So, I've been noticing a bit of a contrast in the general "how to run the game" stuff in DFRPG.

City Creation seems aimed towards setting up this big sandbox with all these pieces that bump off each other. Players get their biggest rewards (Major Milestones) for changing Threats and Themes. It all seems to aim towards a player-proactive sandbox campaign where players set goals, initiate change, and the NPCs add to the story by reacting to player action and snowballing things sort of like a classic Vampire: the Masquerade sandbox chronicle.

But the adventures seem exactly the opposite. The advice seems to presume that the people taking action and shaking things up are going to be the NPCs, that the players will generally be going along enjoying the status quo until they run across the evil plans of an NPC and start blowing things up to stop them. The advice on creating adventures seems to be aimed at creating a fairly reactive campaign.

To  be fair - the adventure creation feels very much in the spirit of the novels. The books almost never start off with Dresden trying to accomplish a goal and then facing opposition. Usually it is just Dresden trying to put his life back together and reach some sense of equilibrium, and then he stumbles across some antagonist who he just can't let go unopposed (or someone comes to him and says "hey, buttface, you owe me/have this obligation, go do a thing!"). Dresden is generally an incredibly reactive protagonist.

Anyway, anyone else notice this? It is almost as if the game sort of bundles together two very distinct playstyles, and doesn't realize how different they can be. I'm seeing the potential for confusion in my players - when I finish an adventure up, half of my players assume they go back into "Reactive waiting for adventure mode" and presume things are unremarkable until their lives get messed up again, whereas another half go into "Okay, what's the next goal we're accomplishing/antagonist we're going after?" sandbox mode where they aren't expecting there to be much of a time jump between adventures.

[wyvern]

Some interesting points.  I'll add another one: it's quite possible for the players to be proactive when their characters are reactive; I have had quite a bit of fun playing a wizard who really just wanted to be left alone to study... and was loaded up with aspects that ensured that wasn't going to happen.  I was fairly proactive about finding ways to get those aspects compelled, but the character was essentially reactive - and, given a few weeks (or months or years) of downtime, he'd happily spend it working on magical research.

[Sanctaphrax]

It's nice to have a setting which encourages proactivity. But adventures are almost inherently reactive. If your players are pursuing their own unique goals, you don't need adventures. You just need to let them do their thing.

So I'd say that the dichotomy is created by the requirements of the medium.

[WadeL]

It's nice to have a setting which encourages proactivity. But adventures are almost inherently reactive. If your players are pursuing their own unique goals, you don't need adventures. You just need to let them do their thing.

So I'd say that the dichotomy is created by the requirements of the medium.

I find, though, even if players might be inclined towards pursuing their own goals, having reactive adventures come to them tends to train them out of it.

Not necessarily a problem, but the main thing that made me notice it is Major Milestones. If the players are initiating the adventures, they can work towards accomplishing a Major Milestone. If you follow the default in the books and have more GM-initiated adventures, players are essentially waiting and crossing their fingers the GM sets up a nice opportunity for them to accomplish a Major Milestone.

[Lawgiver]

Anyway, anyone else notice this? It is almost as if the game sort of bundles together two very distinct playstyles, and doesn't realize how different they can be. I'm seeing the potential for confusion in my players - when I finish an adventure up, half of my players assume they go back into "Reactive waiting for adventure mode" and presume things are unremarkable until their lives get messed up again, whereas another half go into "Okay, what's the next goal we're accomplishing/antagonist we're going after?" sandbox mode where they aren't expecting there to be much of a time jump between adventures.

I very much noticed this. I'm a long time RPGer (38 years). In that time I've come to pretty much despise "prefab" modules. Mainly my game has to operate under the aegis of the military axiom "No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy!" No matter how much detail a prefab gives it can't cover every contingency and live players (especially ones with good imaginations and pro-active play style) tend to do the unexpected way too often.

I've taken to designing the basic outline of the plot in the form of who did/wants what and how did/will it happen. I pick a couple of places for action to occur, toss in a useful NPC or two to help stop-gap data flow problems (talking heads) if needed, give them a starting place/narrative and off they go. After that it's all me reacting to them, not them reacting to what I'm reading them. It's a lot more satisfying that way. We really do tell the story together. I just play the voice of reason to keep it even handed and moderate rules disputes.

[Haru]

I don't think it's that much of a contradictory. It all depends how you set up your city, especially the status quo.

If the players are part of the status quo, an adventure hook will usually have the form of something happening to them. If the players are outside of the status quo, you'll have much more opportunities for plot hooks that challenge the status quo. And those can easily come from the players.

[g33k]

If your players are Olde Skool, then they're used to "classic" reactive adventuring.  "{We were taking a well-earned long weekend to relax|We had just stopped in at the Barstux Cafe for a morning caffeine|We were driving to work|etc etc etc}, when suddenly..."  Pro-active, sandbox-y gaming doesn't come naturally to them; they NEED that shove/pull, to get their characters moving.

The GM can, to some extent, "train" them out of the habit (if "sandbox" is preferred) by insisting that all PCs have one or more active goals -- stuff they are seeking/doing when their fans have no excrement -- and/or ongoing storylines.  The GM just needs to build the "reactive" adventure around these goals/storylines, have the PC's stumble upon the stuff in the course of "RP'ing a bit of 'ordinary day'".  Grab Aspects from various PC's and the setting, as needed.  Tag, they're it...

The thing is, if the GM is "building an adventure" it is, to some extent, much-less-sandbox-y by its very nature.

If the GM and the players are all already familiar with -- expect and prefer -- sandbox play, I don't expect extra advice would be that useful (but I'd be delighted to be proved wrong, with some excellent DFRPG-specific advice on sandbox play... 8^)


- Steve, the g33k
 

[Theogony_IX]

I set up a campaign in Las Vegas that one player happily used as a sandbox environment.  Out of nowhere he decided to go see an ex-white-council sorcerer who dabbled in the gray areas of magic.  This sorcerer had a shop set up for occult items.  When the player shot someone and needed to dispose of the body he decided the sorcerer would be the guy for the job and I just rolled with it.  While he was there, the player stole the sorcerer's grimoire thinking it might help him solve some mysteries in the overarching story.  Turns out the sorcerer wasn't connected with anything, but he did retaliate.  He summoned up a demon to grapple the player's character while he stole some blood from the character.  From then on, the sorcerer would pop in on the character when things were getting tough to lend some useful information to the group.  He did this under the guise that he was protecting an asset for future use.  Unfortunately the game fell off before I could invent something the sorcerer would want from the character.

If I were to create an environment ripe with sandbox interaction, I would create something that each of my local NPCs wanted as part of the city building process.  Interaction with the NPCs of any kind would inevitably bring those desires out and allow my PCs to choose what "quest" sounded most interesting to them and build from there.  Depending on the kind of NPC, they characters would either be pressed into service or allowed to choose for themselves.  I imagine the sorcerer from above would have given the PC little choice in the matter.  This would have let my players decide to follow through or to try weasel out from under the sorcerers thumb.  Think DFRPG meets The Elder Scrolls.

[Remi]

I view the city planning phase as the players making a statement about the kinds of scenarios they want to play, the kind of world they want to experience; essentially, the kind of book they want to read. The character creation phase then figures into that: most of the players had origins and first adventures that derive from aspects built into the city.

I remember reading advice about scenario creation that taking the aspects of player characters, NPCs and the city, and using them to create the bones of scenarios. By choosing aspects and character templates, characters are making statements about what their goals are, and what kinds of scenarios they want to be involved in.

The game is still built on the GM/player or playwright/actor paradigm: one person is responsible for writing a play in which the characters will improvise their roles.

I've played games (like Amber) in which players actively pursued their own goals and made things happen without regard to the plans of the GM. We had a campaign with six or seven players, and alternated between three GMs. In almost every case, the players who instigated their own plots were the other GMs. A lot of players just aren't comfortable with forcing their agendas on other players.

The other factor is idle time during the session: if players go completely off on their own tangents they run the risk of leaving the other players sitting there twiddling their thumbs. Getting all the players involved in the action can sometimes be hard, especially when you've got six players.

When I started our DF campaign, I really wanted to get the players involved in city creation and plotting so that I could let players take over as GM for specific scenarios that they want to see happen. We've been playing for a few months now, and so far no one has said they wanted to do it. Running a game is a lot of work.

I think the Fate system has all the tools to allow maximum player contribution to the game, but the reality is that players either don't want to step on other people's toes by forwarding their own agendas, or can't spend the time and effort required to initiate their own storylines.

That means, for the most part, players rely on the GM to integrate all the players' goals into a coherent campaign that will let everyone have the kind of experience they're looking for.