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Monday, July 15, 2019

Critically Failing as a DM aka Why I Do Not Want Backgrounds Anymore


                   I am going to start a new campaign for OSE in about a month and I have begun talking with some of the potential players. They are starting to have “ideas” for characters, and wanted to begin writing backgrounds. Normally this would not be a big deal, in fact, in the past I use to offer my students bonus XP for having a background. I had rules, that it could not be over 500 words, it could not use trite, overused troupes like; your parents were killed in a raid, you are an orphan, you are searching for a lost relative, or you are seeking vengeance on the man that harmed you in the past. The grammar had to be good, and it was to be treated as an assignment you would turn into a professor, but was completely optional.
Have to take a honest look at my mistakes.

                The last campaign was supposed to be a pure dungeon crawl sandbox (for reference Morgansfort), but it ended up being a sandbox that started to take a narrative life of its own. I started to add portions of the character’s backgrounds into the overall world, and I started to tie characters together. This actually led to me changing my style of campaign as things happened. I grew attached to the characters that the players had, and I liked the stories that were being produced. I found myself taking it easier on the characters, and even fudging a few things here and there, because I wanted the stories to continue in a certain way.
                As time progressed, the sandbox became less and less open, and I started to have a “vision” for how the game should go. The focus became my vision, and less about the player’s desire of the game. I even got so possessed with my own genius that I switched editions mid-campaign. I went from a BECMI to 2nd Edition because it had mechanics I wanted in the game. This through my game for a loop, and just as they were getting the BECMI rules down, I went and upset the applecart. This was generally hubris, and I did not see the cracks forming in the foundation when many of these changes happened. Eventually, I wrote an article about how I did not know how to end the campaign which can be found here. Little did I know, I would not get to that point in the game.
Should have kept it simple.

               
The game collapsed with in-fighting and a general toxic feel to the game. I got the people so invested in their personal story, that they did not see themselves as part of a group anymore. I had tried to snake plotlines into the game that set the group at odds with one another, trusting that they would take the narrative option to form together and defeat evil. This did not happen, many paid lip service to the party, while plotting the doom of other PCs. The game ended when players got so upset over each other’s actions, that they either tried to get themselves killed to leave the game, or try to kill other players. It was a mess, and an absolute failure as a DM. When the campaign was simply about going into dungeons and getting treasure it was fine, but eight players seeing themselves as the main protagonist in a larger narrative ruined the game, and I fed that notion.

Actual picture of my campaign.
                With DM’ing, as with most things in life, it is important to look at your failures as well as your successes. I ran half a year’s campaign that was prosperous and focused, then I changed the focus mid-stream, assuming I was amazing enough to counter ANYTHING that could come up and I was wrong. I allowed players to get far to invested in their characters, to the point that they took things personally. I allowed some toxic behavior at the table, assuming that I could mitigate it with time. I thought myself immune to the mistakes a younger DM could make, and in all my advance techniques forgot about some of the basics. Keep the game focused. Keep the game understandable. Correct toxic behavior immediately and firmly. Let the player’s decisions matter. Remember it is just a game.
                Moving forward I am going to focus on getting back to the basics, literally. I will be using B2 Keep on the Borderland to introduce a new group of students to the wonderful world of D&D. First thing first, no backgrounds. I actually want less investment in the characters, because the characters are disposable. We will forge the narrative of the characters as we go. Also, they will likely die, but the group will go on. Emphasizing the success of the group will be the most important feature. Keep the sandbox an actual sandbox and allow the players to dictate what direction the game is going to go in. Do not switch the game mechanics mid-stream. That does not mean I cannot house rule or modify, but the core mechanics should not change. Do not get cocky and realize that you might need to re-examine the campaign at regular intervals to see what is going on and make sure that you are on the path that is good for everyone. No “world-ending” events, play should consist of a local area, and a localized threat.

Going back to the beginning.

                It is easy to write and discuss the victories of you DM’ing career, it is actually quite hard to take a look and realize that you did not do as well as you could have done. It would be easy to turn this on the players and say that they did not do well, or they made certain decisions that drove the game in certain directions, but at the end of the day the buck stops with me. So I made some mistakes, I have hopefully learned from them. In my second year running the school campaign I will do better.

               
EDIT: This article proved to be very popular. I went ahead and created a Facebook group for the blog, if you are interested the link is here

18 comments:

  1. Great article, should be required reading for any DM, new or old. I've been running for a group for nearly 9 years now. We have spent time mostly on 4E and 5E, with short campaigns in C&C and Dungeon world and one shots is several different systems. I'm preparing to take them back to the old days and try to run a relatively long term campaign (1 year) in B/X and I'm very hopeful. But as you say, you ALWAYS have to be on your toes. You always have to keep your finger in the air to whiff out any issues and fix them before they go nuclear. Reading this article has really helped me focus on that, and the session 0 expectations will be key to that.

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  2. Thank you for the complement and the comment. I agree and clever players will always keep you on your toes!

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  3. I don't mind back stories for your character, however, it is the adventuring itself that actually tells the story that becomes the backstory, as the characters develop and level up. So really you don't see the point of hatching out pre-backstory before one even begins to game. If your character dies during the first encounter and the player wrote a two page back story, it basically just got wasted unless the new character can pull some elements from it. Let the adventure module's setting help create the story as the players interact with the environment. Then when a character dies, a descendant, relation or family friend might be able to add a little backstory by way of having known the dead character.

    In my current campaign on Roll20.net, the core rules uses 1st edition AD&D & mixes in 2nd edition, B/X & BECMI. I will always take the more challenging of the numbers presented in tables and die rolls. I am adding in monster information from each of these editions together and same with the spells.

    I was in the process of readying a real tabletop campaign using Goodman Game's "Into The Borderlands" and expanding it farther with Pacesetter game's "B0.5: Secrets of the Unknown", "B1: Legacy of the Unknown" & "B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderlands". Throwi Games, "B2.5: Caves of the Unknown", Frog God Game's, "The Vile Worm", which expands the Hermit encounter and then placing "B5: Horror on the Hill" south of the Keep across the river, the Keep mentioned in this book now being the Keep on the Borderlands itself.

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  4. That sounds like a fun string of adventures. I will have to read a couple of them. That you for the comment.

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  5. Opps, I forgot to add in "Return to the Keep on the Borderlands" as another source for expanding on "Keep on the Borderlands".

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  6. I do have that one and plan to use a few ideas in it. Especially the names of people.

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  7. Much of my campaign (same PCs for fifteen years) was character background and world building, while maintaining much of a sandbox environment. Are you sure your players just didn’t like each other?

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  8. I think it is great that you are examining why the campaign failed, but I think pointing a finger at backgrounds and character input is the wrong way to go. You say yourself that those backgrounds made the game richer. The problem was not those backgrounds, but your attempts to control the game in a negative way. Instead of putting barricades in front of your players, help them tell the stories they want to tell. It sounds like you started off doing that, but then resorted to the DM as GOD stance that so many people fall back to. I've DMed a while (40 years now) and so I created some rules to guide me in making good campaigns. You can see these at https://lostdelights.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/dakins-rules-for-gamemastering/ and at https://lostdelights.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/installing-the-dungeonmaster-safety-switch/ Good luck, and if those rules help, please let me know. If you know of a way to improve them, tell me that too.

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  9. Oops. After reading your other related posts, I think the problem was actually with allowing evil characters. I've noticed that players these days are more interested in playing evil characters. I'm pretty sure this is because of video games like GTA, but it is toxic. The story I always tell is about my character Stric Evil-knife. You can read it here: https://lostdelights.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/stric-evilknife-team-killing-and-violence/ I don't have alignments in my game, but we all can recognize evil (I hope), and while my players can do some evil things, ultimately they (1) work together and (2) don't do too much evil because my Reputation rules will send armies after them. Again, good luck!

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  10. The funny thing was that I had two evil characters, but only one was a true issue. The other knew how to be evil, but work in a team.

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  11. If I have to be the lone voice I the wilderness then so be it, because I totally disagree with this article. Why? Because you have failed as a Dungeon Master in both directions. A good DM knowns how to balance a good backstory with keeping the party group invested and moving forward, whether they have a character who dies, or whether they do have that one character who begins to shine above others. Either way, the DM is meant to control the game in all aspects, not limit their abilities, or that of the Players. I have gamed with about three different groups in my experience as a Player and I have found the best DM’s are those who not only allow their characters to create wonderful background stories about their characters, but also guide the story and the characters both. In this way, even if Players begin competing with one another, it is controlled, even if one-character attempts to take out another character, it is controlled. The DM is not only master of the game, he’s master over the characters, a master of fate and destiny and through the choices of the characters, the story unfolds, but first the DM must set the stage like a true storyteller. The group I’m playing with now has a DM like that. He can spin a yarn like no one else. Guide and even manipulate characters back and forth when needed. Remember, the DM is playing the NPC’s too, and it is not only about the characters exploring dungeons and getting treasure, but about the antagonists struggling to overcome the PC’s and sometimes even wiping them out. Bottom line, DM’s must play the preverbal god of the game. If the DM is not doing that, then you’re not fulfilling your role as Dungeon Master.

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  12. Depends on the type of game you play. I agree that backstories can be a big part of a game, but not a high death sandbox. I will not have a player invest 3 hours into a backstory to die in the first combat. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. When it happens multiple times, it completely sours the experience. I think people are assuming, and not reading what I say in the article, about the parameters for the game. The game was designed to be a high death sandbox, once I allowed backstories, the deaths went away, and the ego's started to flair. I like a good narrative game like many people, but this wasn't that style of game.

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  13. Unknown, you should probably relax a bit. The author clearly states that he failed. He knows this already. He is sharing his failure and the things he felt compounded it with all of us to help us have maybe a new shred of information as we run games. It sounds like you play but don't run. If that is the case, it's important to understand that it's very hard to see what goes on behind the screen when it comes to managing something as significant as a long term campaign that experiences rules changes and significant changes in scope. I wouldn't be so quick to tell people how to fix things that you may not really understand. Also, you speak well of your group and that is great. Props to your DM. But I'm sure Ryan's group would speak well of him too, certainly prior to the implosion. It may just be that your group hasn't had a high risk situation like this. I've known many DMs and players and every single one of them has had groups they loved that ultimately imploded for one reason or another. It's only in hindsight that they can see what what wrong and only then can they theorize at what might have fixed it. Ryan does us all a service by taking responsibility and sharing what he learned. Our takeaways need not be his takeaways. We all have different strengths. If Ryan has concluded that backstories played a part in his campaigns demise, I"m inclined to believe him. I think we can safely say that he'll do better next time.

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  14. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSyPYLSF2p_lLHCH8vlpa622UvzdOFj9zKQZfZaNZDCJ1rWuO07

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  15. I agree: "Great article, should be required reading for any DM, new or old". We don't often talk about our failures. I had something similar (although it didn't get to the infighting point), more it was me trying to figure out the "story". One of the characters died by falling down a 10 foot pit trap, and he had a 3 page backstory. I'll be re-reading this post often.

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  16. Required Reading is an amazing complement. Thank you.

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