Quote from: estar;708852So what do you call your writeup on the master plan of a powerful NPC and the potential timeline?

I would call them Plans, that will likely change based on what happens in the world.  Plans.

Not etched in stone and forcing pc's to conform.

Quote from: atpollard;708849I would argue that it is not unrealistic or counterproductive to have events (often larger than the characters) that unfold with or without the characters interaction with them. A specific example would be a campaign set just before the start of a civil war. There already exist two antagonistic factions. There may be future events unrelated to the characters that will unfold. The war will come.

... this sort of predetermined probable series of events would, IMhO, add rather than subtract from the verisimilitude that many claim to seek.

A static world where everyone and everything seems frozen in time until the characters interact with it snaps my suspenders of disbelief harder than a predetermined world history.

[Of course I would never argue that the PC actions could not change the planned future events. Just the opposite, preserving that possibility is what palying a big damn hero is all about.   ]

1) Lord Vreeg, myself, and other call this concept "World in Motion". The basic gist that the setting has a life of its own. That the game becomes more immersive if you effectively convey this through the course of the campaign.

2) Far more people confuse this with railroading and react according. When you manage to cut through the bullshit more often than not you find they do this in their own campaigns as well.

Quote from: Bill;708855There is a difference between planning out the future and mapping out  history.

Scale?

Quote from: Bill;708856I would call them Plans, that will likely change based on what happens in the world.  Plans.

Not etched in stone and forcing pc's to conform.

Plan works. I call my writeup the plot. But they both mean the same thing in the context of tabletop roleplaying.

Quote from: estar;708852So what do you call your writeup on the master plan of a powerful NPC and the potential timeline?

"The NPC's plan" or "objectives" and "potential campaign developments".

Quote from: Arduin;708751There's nothing "terrible".  It's just that a HUGE % of experienced RPers dislike railroading.  Which is what HAS to happen to in a Game that has a "story".

Well, that's a difference in usage of 'story', and one I can certainly understand.  Especially given the period of RPGs from the DL era through the 90s with the 'storyteller' era.

But while it's certainly true that often 'story' means 'the predetermined path that the GM has set up', story is often used by some people to mean 'the shit that happens in the game world, and how the game world progresses.'

A game I ran recently had a setup with a few power factions in a town, the PCs, and a wild card being a group of people that had basically been infested by vaguely mythos-type creatures.  The point of playing through this game was to find out what happened in the town.

As the GM, I had no idea what would happen.  But I would consider the unfolding events to be 'the story'.

As I said, I get the reaction to the term.  And that's why I generally avoid using it here.  But I think it's worth noting that not *everybody* means 'railroading' when they say story.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;708854I think pretty much all of us would agree with that.  A living, breathing world where the PCs become aware of events happening without their intervention is cool.  Its when there are pre-determined events set to happen WITH the PCs intervention that we have a problem.

Oh yeah, as Zak S memorably put it with regard to storygames which weren't really that narrative, specifically Luke Crane's Torchbearer, "Luke took these games where you can do anything and said, hey wouldn't it be great if you were limited to only being able to do a few things instead!", or words to that effect.

Quote from: Benoist;708860"The NPC's plan" and "potential campaign developments".

And how that differs when writers write up their character's plans and future timeline before writing a novel?

As as I understand it the term used for this activity is called "writing up the plot: or a plot outline.

Granted the intended use of the material is vastly different but little significance between organization and physical form of the two type of document.

I also understand that this is often done before writing a script.

So we have an two examples of a document outlining the plans of  characters and the timeline used for two different types of activities.

In fact I also understand those plot outlines often become very useful when creating licensed RPG game.

I personally not have a problem calling my similarly formatted notes for tabletop RPGs a Plot outline, and their content the plot of my campaign. Of course my ultimate use is very different than the ultimate use of a plot outline for a novelist, or scriptwriter.

I think most of the antipathy results from whole Ron Edwards bullshit.

But I also have to acknowledge is that when presented with a plot outline more than a few think they HAVE to run it as is. And god forbid you should deviate. I don't think it is a major issue but it is there and one I encountered outside of the internet in my experience with the gaming community of Western PA.

Enough of an issue that if I ever polish my "How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox" for publication that I will label it as part of "World in Motion".

Quote from: robiswrong;708861Well, that's a difference in usage of 'story',

No it isn't.  It is the definition in ENGLISH. What language are you using?

Quote from: estar;708868And how that differs when writers write up their character's plans and future timeline before writing a novel?

That is completely different to me, because what it describes in the context of a role playing game and campaign before it actually comes in contact with the game table is what a given character wants, and how that character would potentially go about to fulfill these objectives. This might very well not be the way it actually unfolds in the game, and in that sense, it does not describe a sequence of events taking place in the game as it is being played, which is what the plot actually is in relation to a novel or a movie.

Quote from: estar;708868I think most of the antipathy results from whole Ron Edwards bullshit.

Exactly.

What you (Estar) are calling "plot" I would refer to as "scenario."  It is the situation the world is in at the point where & when the players begin to interact with it.  There may be a whole host of NPCs who all have their own motivations and plans (some probably nefarious) and goals.  Some of those plans may initiate events in the world that occur at certain times.  Depending on the choices the PCs make they may or may not influence those events.  They may or may not even be aware of those events.  Its even possible one of those NPCs could initiate some event that brings about the end of the game world!  If the players had chosen not to bite on any of the hooks I may have thrown during play they could be in for a bit of a surprise in that case.  

I am much more comfortable with the word "scenario" to describe this, yes, especially since it is applicable in real life projections, as in "scenarios likely to occur if this and that happens before hand."

Quote from: estar;708868And how that differs when writers write up their character's plans and future timeline before writing a novel?

As as I understand it the term used for this activity is called "writing up the plot: or a plot outline.

The potential difference lies in how set in stone the future timeline is, and the ability of the players to change it.

If I give an NPC plans, they have plans.  I'm not attached to them as a GM in any way.  They're the NPC's plans, not *mine*.

Quote from: estar;708868But I also have to acknowledge is that when presented with a plot outline more than a few think they HAVE to run it as is. And god forbid you should deviate. I don't think it is a major issue but it is there and one I encountered outside of the internet in my experience with the gaming community of Western PA.

Enough of an issue that if I ever polish my "How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox" for publication that I will label it as part of "World in Motion".

There's a subtle danger here for GMs in that the more time you sink into a plan, the more you want to use it.  You don't want to throw the work away, and it's just *so cool* you want to show it off.

That can lead to inadvertent railroading.

Quote from: Benoist;708876I am much more comfortable with the word "scenario" to describe this, yes, especially since it is applicable in real life projections, as in "scenarios likely to occur if this and that happens before hand."

I prefer that as well.  I'll use the word "story" to describe games (using the definition I gave before), but I avoid "plot" pretty religiously.

Quote from: Bill;708838The 'storygaming' concept I don't personally relate to, is when someone is actively thinking about story as they play, or having characters do something based on metagame story goals.

To be honest I think this stuff gets overstated. I like storygames. When I run one, I see players making decisions based on a combination of two things: i) this is what my character would do in the gameworld, and ii) this is what seems like a cool thing to have happen at the games table.

I think this is a mixture that occurs in most RPG play. I think that when most people play RPGs they quite often make decisions based on factors other than what their character would do - eg, this will be cool to blow everyone up and then blink away using my new power, or Bob gave me a lift so I'll heal his character first, or this looks pretty dicey but there's no game if I don't agree to the quest.  

Different people, different groups, and different games will favour a different mixture of those two broad motives. And I fully accept that in some groups, the 'wouldn't it be cool if...' thing is far far smaller than the 'my character would do this' thing, or vice versa. But most RPG play for most groups features a reasonable mix of the two IME.

I think that the main feature of storygaming is making the 'wouldn't it be cool if...' motive an equal (but by no means necessarily dominant) driver of play, and setting up the game rules to give players more freedom or opportunities to mechanically support those moments when they do happen. To me it's about thinking cinematically much more than it is about thinking narratively. I've never once seen a player in my games make a decision because he thinks it's the second act, or because he thinks it will nicely foreshadow the fact that the game is secretly a metaphor for the Crimean War. I have however seen many players make decisions based significantly on what would be the most fun/dramatic/exciting thing to have happen next, both in storygames and non-storygames. Not to the exclusion of 'what the character would do' but certainly as a co-pilot to it.