Dead Horse

Dead Horse
poor dead horsey

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Creative control

From a comment a couple days ago a poster claims we all need to be equal in creative control when we sit at the table.
While i agree an improv can be very entertaining. They dont have staying power. A world where for arugement we will say 5 people all have equal creative control is going to suck. It will be a patchwork mish mash of 5 minds. I like my game worlds to at least appear internaly consistant.

If your creative desires are so great, become a DM! Write a book/story/novel. Paint or draw. But come to a DMs world and try to creatively change what has been made. That is the hallmark of a bad player.
The world we DMs make is you players to explore and interact with. Not for you to edit as you wish.

The more i look at/interact with the story as play types the less i think any system can unify fantasy role play.
WotC is in way over its head.


2 comments:

  1. I'm not so cut and dry about it. When I'm starting a campaign I actively seek out player contributions to the setting that I'm overseeing, as alot of them are part time DMs as well and why carry all the creative burden when they're willing to help out. Once the game's rolling, though I prefer the DM to have narrative control. I'm paraphrasing Stuart from Strange Magic here, but giving players total narrative control is like going into a haunted house ride where you know you can turn all the scares off if you want to. Where's the tension in that?

    A game you might wanna have a look at though is 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars, where narrative control in the form of Flashbacks can change or end a scene, but it's a very limited resource. Change the game too early on, use up your Flashbacks before things get really serious, and you run out of get-out-of-jail cards. It's a half/half tween total DM control and free wheelin' player control. Worth a look.

    I hadn't even considered WotC was looking at handing narrative control over to players... just seems so out of place in D&D!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I realise that DMing requires a bit of a social contract between players and DM. However it is my world and they are welcome to come to go as they please. Heck i have more potential players then i have room. I must be doing some thing right. Right?

    ReplyDelete