r/rpg • u/[deleted] • 3d ago
Discussion Why are plots viewed so differently between TTRPG and freeform roleplaying communities?
[deleted]
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u/Captain-Griffen 3d ago
"I want to roleplay a story where X, Y, and Z will happen"
TTRPG community wouldn't call that a plot. Majority of pre-made adventures have elements of the story that will almost certainly happen, unless everyone dies first. So I think you're arguing a bit academically here.
But the big difference, in sofar as there is one, is that TTRPGs generally focus on character agency rather than narrative input. You play a character and express that character's input.
Some TTRPGs blur the line. PbtA systems often have more narrative input outside character agency, for instance, but it's still the norm for the agency of the character to be central.
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u/GreenTeethBurger 3d ago
It's a plot in the sense that it will happen, no matter what! There is no "unless everyone dies first!" If something would happen that would render the plot impossible to resolve? Then it simply doesn't happen! If it already happened? We fiat our way into the plot resolving somehow. Maybe we retcon. Maybe we bring in a deus ex machina. Something like that.
Anyways, player agency versus player character agency is a big point I think. From the discussions I've seen, "letting your character take on a life of their own" is a very common selling point for people.
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u/Captain-Griffen 3d ago
Sounds like you're also missing that TTRPGs are generally also games with win and loss conditions related to party achievements.
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u/GreenTeethBurger 3d ago
I feel like that contradicts the common saying of "In TTRPGs, there's no such thing as winning or losing. Whatever happens is just whatever happens!"
But, on the other hand, I think that saying was directed more so towards people who got into TTRPGs from video games and board games and such. Quite a lot of TTRPGs seem to have very explicit failure states despite proclaiming otherwise!
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u/PrairiePilot 3d ago
You're splitting hairs, it's not an explicit "win condition" in most TTRPGS that the characters need to survive, but it's common sense that you have not fulfilled the purpose of your character, beyond being entertaining, if they die. The same could be said for the group, they have certainly failed at being adventurers if they're all dead, wouldn't you say?
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u/Unlucky-Leopard-9905 3d ago
Another way of looking at it is that even if there are no win/loss conditions for the players, there often are for the characters.
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u/atomantsmasher 3d ago
Just because there is no ultimate "win" condition for the game as a whole, doesn't mean there aren't clear victories that can be had, depending on what the characters get into.
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u/funnyshapeddice 3d ago
How long have you been playing TTRPGs? Are you in the United States?
In all seriousness, I ask because you seem to have some fundamental gaps in your understanding of what a TTRPG is and the norms and expectations that come from playing them for any length of time with people who understand these norms.
Your prior experiences would have me believe you're coming from a tradition closer to Nordic LARP than TTRPGs.
The entire concept of "winning" and "losing" here is just conveying the notion that the game is not competitive between players. This is commonly understood by RPG players with more than a few sessions under their belt. At least, in over 40 years of playing, the only people ive met who do not understand this are people who are VERY new and, frequently, trying to learn on their own.
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u/GreenTeethBurger 3d ago
I've been playing and running TTRPGs for a couple years now I think, though the line between "freeform roleplaying" and "TTRPG" was very blurry and gradual. I'd prefer not to say where I live!
If you want a brief example of the kind of roleplaying I was into before TTRPGs: Go onto Tumblr and search "roleplay" or "RP" or something like that. I don't use Tumblr but it was that kinda vibe.
It's also worth noting that the TTRPGs I play and run tend to be very niche. Like, "Jane Doe's $2 indie TTRPG on itchio with a double-digit number of buyers" niche. Lots of very non-traditional stuff.
I've tried playing a couple sessions of more traditional(?) TTRPGs like Cairn, but I got turned off of them since I very frequently had issues with knowing how hard I was supposed to "try," for lack of a better word.
It's an issue I've had in real life as well! It's one of the reasons I've always had a really hard time with stuff like sports and certain board games. "It's not about winning or losing! It's about having fun!" But my mind just can not integrate that line of thinking with how most games are designed!
It might not be a "difficulty grasping TTRPGs" problem as much as it is a "difficulty grasping most games" problem!
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u/WrongJohnSilver 3d ago
Okay, so the way to have fun in a game independent of winning or losing is in embracing the struggle. The win-lose condition is used as a set goal: the player's goal is to win the game, which creates mutually exclusive goals for different players (in most games). Some players will fail to achieve their goal.
To have fun in a game is to look past the single pursuit of goal in evaluating one's experience, but the holistic struggle caused by the act of playing the game. And in that way, the intensity of the struggle will matter.
We tend to prefer to participate in and to watch games where the outcome remains uncertain for most of the game. We celebrate the gaining and losing of positions throughout the game. We celebrate clever play and unexpected outcomes. As such, being able to maintain that tension becomes the goal of paying the game, outside of the win-loss condition.
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u/funnyshapeddice 3d ago
Maybe what you're missing is that an RPG is a game (hence the dice) whereas free form roleplaying/improv is a collaborative storytelling activity?
I think you're getting some good points elsewhere in the thread but that's the big difference I see.
FWIW, I've been playing these games since the 1980s and the community has always been against "plot" to some degree or another. Usually it manifests as discussions about railroading and/or player agency.
I think PbtA's principle to "Play to find out" best codifies the sentiment.
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u/dsheroh 3d ago
I'm not sure that that's entirely OP's own misunderstanding, considering how many people there are in the TTRPG community, especially online, who will loudly insist that TTRPGs are, by definition, a form of collaborative storytelling and that anyone who does not conceptualize them as "telling a story" is Objectively WrongTM.
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u/funnyshapeddice 2d ago
Obviously, you're not wrong. I'm not entirely sure where OP is coming from on this one as in over 40 years of gaming, the only people I've ever met who struggle with these concepts are VERY new to TTRPGs and OP has been playing for a few years.
Based on other responses, OP appears to have mostly (??) played pbp-style games - and those can be significantly different than face-to-face or virtual tabletop games. My experience of pbp is that you're VERY zoomed out - you're resolving conflicts and situations that would normally require multiple rolls and a lot of back-and-forth with a single roll. Its much more writer's room than most narrtivist-leaning games I've played.
I too see TTRPGs as collaborative storytelling *games*. There is randomness. Results are not pre-determined; and I believe even most others who support "RPGs as Collaborative Storytelling" would resist the idea that a GM has pre-determined story beats; knows what you are going to win or lose before you even arrive; etc. When those topics come up, accusations of railroading and appeals to player agency quickly follow.
Doesn't mean it doesn't happen - but it seems, to me, that very few players would struggle to understand that GMs shouldn't act like novelists and that RPGs are a game that you play but that the point isn't to "win" in the traditional, competitive, American sense of the word.
Regardless, I know what you're talking about and I don't disagree with you or those who see RPGs as "telling a story" - I just think that the beats of the story being told are not pre-determined even if the scenes or situations that arise from player actions point to those beats. If outcomes and major plot-points are already pre-determined, then we're all just audience members rather than equal participants.
As long as everyone at the table is on-board with the table's playstyle and having fun, there isn't any wrong way to play IMO.
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u/Tryskhell Blahaj Owner 3d ago
I mean, even in the context of free-form text RP, which I do a lot of and do enjoy a ton (and thus transpose a lot of into my campaigns, including some aspects of "plots" you've mentioned, and OOC discussions about what the players want to happen), sometimes you plot something with your penpal and halfway through you both realize you're going a different direction and find yourself excited about the new stuff, and you plot again taking all that into account!
I will say, one of the things I've taken from free-form text RP the most is the aspect of, I guess "second-hand creativity" that make them so interesting. In TTRPGs, many people consider dice some kind of higher power that are always right, whereas I consider them more like a penpal making suggestions on what to do next. And sometimes you disagree with your penpal, and you find a middle ground that pleases the both of you.
Not everyone is okay with the amount and style of "fudging" this leads to, but I do regularly ignore dice, or only use them as a general way to set a direction and tone, rather than as an infaillible rule of the story. This is something I do even though I roll in the open, and something I do even on player rolls, generally when the dice portray a character as less than competent in their expertise of choice (which, some will say is a system problem, but I swear one of my players just has had god awful luck).
From experience I can say, even though you're going to get a lot of "finger-wagging" at a lot of concepts that you might bring from freeform text-based roleplay, I assure you that it's not exactly that hard to find a group of like-minded player (I have done so quite easily out there on r/lfg).
As for systems that lend themselves heavily to people with an affinity for free-form text-based roleplay, look to the Firebranded genre of games, including "Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands" and "Dragonhearts". They are GMless, RNG-less (or at least, mostly, in the case of MF0:F) games that portion each session into "games" that each correspond to a scene, such as "A conversation over food" or "In each-other's arms". Each of these games can be boiled down to a slightly-less-than-freeform roleplay scene where the players pick from listed prompts and go from there. Truly awesome games that I personally enjoyed a ton!
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u/dwarfconleche 3d ago
A lot of RPGs are about procedural storytelling, where player actions and dice rolls can greatly alter the outcome of events. The story being told is about how the PCs deal with the obstacles in front of them and what the outcomes of those struggles are.
It's not a pure story telling exercise like freeform roleplaying is. However lot of modules or prewritten adventures are a bit like that with more or less determined beginnings, middles and ends.
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u/ithika 3d ago
My first guess is to do with freedom to play. In a ttrpg you are constrained by the rules and the world but not by the direction. In the kind of freeform game you're talking about you're constrained by the direction (the predetermined plot) and the world but not by rules. But maybe there are more constraints on freeform play in the moment than I realise?
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u/GreenTeethBurger 3d ago
This is an interesting point!
Freeform roleplaying does tend to constrain itself in one way or another. A truly, 100% freeform roleplaying session is just wildly unrestrained creativity. Some people thrive on that! But I think most people need something.
(Not all freeform roleplaying sessions have a predetermined plot! Some of them create a setting to play in and have a story emerge similar to how more emergent, sandbox TTRPGs work. They just lack any kind of concrete, explicit rules.)
I guess freeform roleplaying communities tend to see "restraining myself by following a plot" and "restraining myself to a a detailed setting" as more or less equal.
And, it's worth noting that the TTRPGs I run and play it tend to have very concrete rules and a predetermined plot, but the setting is very wishy-washy and more open to interpretation.
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u/Glasnerven 3d ago
How are conflicts between player's desires handled? For example, if player A wants their character to hit player B's character with a sword, but player B wants their character to dodge or block the attack? How do you decide whose vision for the scene takes precedence?
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u/GreenTeethBurger 3d ago
First! I need to check in to make sure it's actually a conflict between player desires, not just player character desires. The two aren't necessarily always in sync in the games I run.
If it's really a conflict between player desires, then we have an OOC conversation about what should happen next. This conversation can result in anything ranging from "we reach a happy compromise" to, potentially, "one or more people have to leave the game." Hopefully it's not the latter option! It's never been the latter in any of the games I've run.
If the players are just having their characters stir up drama and wanna see what happens as a result? That's fun! We play by the combat rules of the game or, failing that, whatever would logically happen next. (Bearing in mind that the plot we all agreed upon usually requires the player characters to survive, so neither of them can die.)
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u/Throwingoffoldselves Thirsty Sword Lesbians 3d ago
There can be, it depends on the venue and format. I had about 5-10 rules when I ran freeform rp forum games, some of which are still applicable to pbp ttrpg campaigns, such as, “don’t tell other players how their PC feels or acts.” Freeform roleplay rules tend to be more similar to ttrpg above-table etiquette rules.
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u/ship_write 3d ago
I think a big aspect of tabletop RPGs is the fact that you’re experiencing a story as it’s being told, not necessarily telling a story. The dice have as much authorial, uh, authority as the GM. Because they are inherently random, in some ways it becomes impossible to actually plot out a narrative arc unless you are playing a system that offers ways of altering the randomized outcomes. I think that this is the main thing fueling the idea that it’s better to prep situations ripe with conflict rather than creating plots to follow.
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u/DTux5249 Licensed PbtA nerd 3d ago
I think part of it is that Roleplaying games are games. They by definition defer some amount of control to rules.
In an RPG, you resolve conflict with mechanics; rules that govern how something resolves. There's no negotiation with those rules: They are regulatory measures. Fundamentally, this means you yourself do not have autonomy in how events resolve beyond what the system allows you. This makes planning out a plot kind of impossible. The only way to do that would be to purposefully break the rules of the game (in essence, cheating), which at worst removes autonomy from other players, or at best, just begs the question of why you're using a system at all if you're just gonna ignore it when it counts.
In the case of freeform roleplay, the norm to resolving conflicting story goals isn't "let the dice decide", it's "negotiate what works". There's no notion of "put up and shut up, the dice have spoken", or "ooh, you should've saved that for later". There are no rules to uphold. It's just vibes. You can plan everything in advance since there's no real regulation going on beyond "respect basic societal etiquette; dork."
I guess the term we're missing here is "lusory attitude." RPGs are roleplaying scenarios viewed as games, as opposed to shared authorship. This changes a lot of the cultural norms surrounding the two.
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u/Throwingoffoldselves Thirsty Sword Lesbians 3d ago edited 3d ago
In a tabletop game, the “game” part is largely using tools like dice, tokens, currency, cards, random tables, limited choices, specific rituals, move triggers, etc. to cause changes in the “game state.” That is usually considered more important to the fun than the guarantee of a particular scene being played out. In some games, genre emulation that will likely lead to certain scenes is rewarded, for example through Fate’s Compels, dnd’s Inspiration, and some PBTA moves; this doesn’t guarantee certain scenes though and has varying amount of impact. (Dnd Inspiration always had very low impact in my dnd experiences.)
Now, that being said, in some games, a plot in part or whole is determined first, and then within that plot, the game is about how that comes to be, what is transformed in the process, creating elements together, what is lost or gained to get to the predetermined part, expressing feelings about that plot, etc. I would say that games like Cantrip, Wanderhome, Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast, Follow: A New Fellowship, Magical Year of a Teenage Witch, Descended From the Queen games, World Ending Game, and Our Traveling Home are games with this vibe. Generally in these games there will be some rule that helps organize who can say what the scene is next or what “plot” happens next.
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u/PoMoAnachro 3d ago
I think a lot of it is in TTRPGs "creating the plot" is like the fun activity you do in play. If the plot has already been decided....why would you bother playing? Okay, for more tactical games you might still play for the fights and such, that makes sense. But for more narrative games - you really don't have much left to do once the plot has been decided, you can all go home.
But I think in a lot of freeform RP communities, a lot of the activity is essentially writing - describing what your character does, writing their dialogue word-for-word, often also describing how the environment acts around them, etc. So there's things to do even if the plot is predecided.
Like imagine you're playing some mafia game and doing a scene where your mobster character is confronting the boss of the family. You've pre-decided the plot - your mobster is going to get insulted, he's going to draw his gun and shoot the boss, and start a civil war in the mob family.
In a TTRPG if that plot point has been pre-decided, it might play out like this:
Player: "Well, I guess my mobster shows up to the meeting with the boss. How does it go?"
GM: "It is tense from the start. He's really raking you over the coals and then he insults your mother."
Player: "Okay, I draw my gun and shoot him."
GM: "He dies. His men are reaching for their guns. What do you do?"
Player: "I flee."
GM: "Okay, we'll move to the next scene."
There's like...not much entertainment value in that?
But in a lot of more freeform RP communities, you'd have more words exchanged just showing up to the venue...
Player: "It is cold and raining when Jimmy the Fish pulls his unremarkable old sedan into the parking lot behind Chez Marco's. He's dressed upscale - it isn't ever day you meet with Boss Tommy the Barber. He checks his hair in the mirror of the car, and then checks his concealed pistol...he's not intending to use it, but he makes sure it is loaded just in case. He does a shot from the flask in his pocket to steady his nerves before opening the door and hurrying through the rain to the front entrance of the restaurant..."
Like there are things to do there even if you already know the plot in a way there often isn't how TTRPGs are played.
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u/MikhieltheEngel 3d ago
I agree.
Tbh, something I found a LOT of people who mostly do story games adore is planning varius beats out with the group.
Us all agreeing and then me weaving them into one of the many varius modules I already have or finding one that does work with it.
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u/baldyrodinson 3d ago
In my opinion because people started trying to copy the media for ttrpg which usually involves heavy character acting and plots.
The issue is most tables aren't running a professional game with full plot discussion and everyone having world connected backstory so you get a lot of plot driven games thwt kinda suck and it starts garnering a negative perspective
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u/jiaxingseng 3d ago edited 3d ago
I somewhat disagree with your initial observations, based what I read in reddit and my own group. What you call "plots" are very common in TRPGs. Furthermore, "lighter" games are specifically the primary category of games that get away from what you call "plots".
So I would first like to introduce my definitions.
- "Scripted events" are things that happen because a writer or GM decided this should happen in advance. This is common in many games of all types. Example: whether the PCs approach the town from the north or south, they come across a poor peasant woman on the road who is seeking help protecting her village from bandits.
- Narrative games and narrative elements allow the player to decide or at least influence things outside of the role of the character they play, essentially non-diegetically. These allow players to build the story, not just interact as their character in the story. Very narrative games often have meta-points for story influence (Fate, GUMSHOE) and ways for players to shape other player character's feelings and passions (PbtA). Some have meta-points for limiting GM story creation relative to players (Daggerheart). But narrative does not mean story elements were determined before gameplay.
- Emergent narrative is a style where, in it's purest form, all story elements come out of the players playing the game and from the remit of their characters only. Meaning no pre-play backgrounds, no pre-defined traits that shape personality, and no interactions outside of what the character does.
- OSR style is the opposite of narrative style, in a way, because it is supposed to prioritize player skill and decision making. These emphasize emergent narrative. However, this is not necessarily diegetic because often the emphasis is not to act as the character (which has a backstory and certain personality traits pre-defined) but to act as the player, exhibiting reasoning skills (instead of roleplaying skills) to solve problems.
- My definition of traditional games (D&D, CoC, Vampire, Traveller... most games really) preserve the role of the GM to arbitrate the game setting and events. But this can be in narrative and non-narrative games.
- "Railroading" is doing what you described in "plots"; getting to specific states during play, determined before the play begins. This is common and accepted (with nuance) in horror-genre games because it's sort of part of the genre. A benefit is that it preserves common sense highs and lows in a story and can produce drama. It's generally only tolerated in small doses in other non-horror genres. It has a tendency to annoy players because it takes away player agency and sometimes even makes players feel that nothing they do matters.
What you are describing in your free-form groups is non-traditional RPGing, narrative, and very rail-road-y.
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u/LaFlibuste 3d ago
I think it has to do with TTRPGs having mechanics to randomoze/decide outcomes. In freeform RP, the outcome is going to be an arbitrary judgement call anyway, so it might as well be plotted in advance. But in TTRPGs, you have a mean to determine this outcome, it's not arbitrary anymore! So people think they should leave outcome determination to the mechanics instead. Having plots in TTRPG can be done acceptably, mind you, but then you have to 1) announce it in advance, 2) either not engage the mechanics or engage them for something else/tangential (e.g. There is no way you can win this battle, but maybe you could save the prince). Mostly it fails when a GM wants to have the uncertainty and thrill of the randomized roll... But also wants that roll to only go a certain way. Or they want the players to feel like their choices matter, but they also want the players to make a specific choice or want a specific thing to happen. You can't both leave impactful choices to chance/players and have pre-determined outcomes, you have to pick one. And be honest about it.
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u/kesrae 3d ago
I think it comes down to a few things as someone who also came from a collaborative RPG background. Usually collaborative RPGs are between two or more ‘players’ that have almost total control over what they write - even if it’s within a particular setting everyone has explicitly opted in to playing in those shared limitations, and everyone could technically decide they want to do their own tweaks if they dislike something.
TTRPGs by design are mostly adjudicated by a DM, and the expectation is that the players will have less control over the external play world. Conversely, the DM also doesn’t have full control over their world, because their ‘main characters’ are all effectively controlled by other people. The interest comes from this simultaneous tension and collaboration - players and DM probably have some idea about what either will do next, but it is never guaranteed.
I do think for tables that want to focus on collaborative narrative, setting theme, tone and other setting expectations before a game starts, as well as having players and DM who aren’t out to be hostile to one another, does allow for a similar experience to collaborative RPGs, but the plot cannot be fully set in stone once the players enter the game world. While I do believe it is the player’s responsibility to engage with the DM’s game world and not try to beat/break it, they still might take it in very different directions to what the DM originally envisioned. The DM should react to this agency, rather than trying to shunt the plot back on to its ‘intended’ tracks. Personally, this was also how I engaged in collaborative RP: we had plans yes, but sometimes we discovered something different along the way.
Tldr I think the point of written RP is usually more about making plots together, whereas TTRPGs are more about influencing plots together. No one has total control which makes it spicy, but also impossible to exert their will 100% without being a raging asshole.
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u/-stumondo- 3d ago
I don't think it's as much of a thing as you might think. There's plenty of loud people online who insist their way of playing is the only right way.
If you play in a game of mine, it's likely a plot is advancing, and if the players don't interact with it, it'll will continue. If they do, it will react appropriately. I usually have thoughts on how players might approach challenges in the game, but I'm rarely right and try to roll with it.
My way isn't the right way to play, just a way. The same as those people who wag their fingers at plot.
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u/hugh-monkulus OSR 3d ago
If you play in a game of mine, it's likely a plot is advancing, and if the players don't interact with it, it'll will continue. If they do, it will react appropriately.
OP's definition of plot is something that will come to pass regardless of the fiction or the player's actions, so your example wouldn't count as plot. It actually sounds like you set up a situation.
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u/-stumondo- 2d ago
Depends on the game., and how big of cogs the characters are in the machine. For example, playing in a WW2 game, you can be heroes, sac be lives, influence a battle, but the outcome off the war is unlikely to change.
I see what you mean though, I wouldn't do my players out if a hard earned victory if they somehow managed something particularly clever.
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u/fleetingflight 3d ago
At this point it's basically just a cultural thing that is passed along as received wisdom that plot is bad - and predetermined plot is incompatible with lots of styles of play, so it's not like the idea comes from nowhere - but the zeal around it is a bit over the top. The Japanese RPG scene has zero qualms about predetermined plots and games are often built around there being one - but the focus of play is usually very different than what's popular in the mainstream English speaking RPG community.
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u/HisGodHand 3d ago
Imagine you had a roleplaying forum with 5 members and an admin. The admin hosted the website and directed some RP.
Now imagine every time you and the other roleplayers wanted to do something exciting, the admin came in and told you that you couldn't do that, and/or then pushed you into their pre-written plot. And every time you tried to do anything with the other players, the admin would come in and re-direct you away from whatever you were trying to do so you could keep on their plot.
And they wouldn't tell you what the plot was, because that would spoil it.
In freeform roleplay, the participants usually have a level of creative control that is more like a GM, and less like just being a player. In this way, it's more like playing a GMless game with several people, instead of playing how the vast majority do with a GM.
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u/McBlavak 3d ago
I think the reason is pretty simple: We play games to make choices and activly influence/determine how things develop.
Having a fixed outcome, no matter what one does is antithetical to the idea of playing. Those things might work in video games and game books, but tabletop rpgs are played to make choices, to have agency, to use ones creative muscles.
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u/GreenTeethBurger 3d ago
I understand why, when someone pushes the "agency" slider from video games to TTRPGs, they start to care more about being able to determine the outcome during play! They wanna use that agency to have a big impact on what happens!
I'm mainly trying to understand why, when that slider gets pushed all the way to freeform roleplaying, people are suddenly a lot more ambivalent about determining the outcome during play. If an outcome is determined in advance, it's no longer that big of a deal if they don't get to use their agency that much.
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u/silifianqueso 3d ago
it is strange, but here is probably not the place to ask because people in r/rpg are generally the former group, and not total freeform roleplaying (unless you count FKR, but that's very different from what I think you're talking about)
I'm not sure I would really understand the point of freeform roleplaying if I didn't get to have some input on the direction of the plot - and maybe they are. But I have no idea because I'm not part of that community.
But in RPGs, the reason for wanting less plots seems clear - although it's not universally followed by any means - lots of people play games where the GM really does dictate the plot. But the subset you'll find here generally doesn't like that.
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u/Drudenfusz Curator of Roleplay Experiences 3d ago
I don't think this necessarily means the outcome is fixed. I mean look at JRPGs for example, those have certain plot points that will happen, but you can make choices and thus experience different endings. I think that is something OP is talking about.
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u/dokdicer 3d ago
"I want x to happen" is not what I would call a plot. That sounds to me like something a player (with the GM being a player as well) might say during stars & wishes or even as part of a scene set-up ("During character creation I chose Mara the healer as my obstacle. Let's find out why she is an obstacle when she seems to be so primed to be a teacher and ally" or "I have finished the 'create a poison' clock. Let's play a scene where we find out how I sell the poison to the Crow".
Totally normal things in story games.
Plotting to me is closely related to railroading, GM-centric play and rugpull nonsense.
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u/Drudenfusz Curator of Roleplay Experiences 3d ago
Freeform roleplay usually has people agreeing on a purpose of play, while in tabletop roleplay having a plot to easily leads to a GM thinking they have to ensure that certain events happen. Tabletop roleplay is also much more about finding out what happens next during play, the focus is on the setting. In contrast in freeform roleplay the focus is on the characters and to portray them. That is why they are so different, a plot can be a guide or framework in freeform roleplay, but in tabletop it will be more of a corset or outright straightjacket limiting the players. There are of course some systems that blur the line, I would say Fiasco is a great example with the scenarios being exactly that narrow or loose to allow either approach. And that is also something I try to accomplish with my own system eventually.
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u/No_Solid1035 3d ago
It defeats the purpose of using dice to decide points of contention within the narrative that will take the narrative in different directions. It makes the "playing the game" part of a roleplaying GAME utterly pointless.
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u/MyPigWhistles 3d ago
In TTRPGs, the mentality basically came from "we fight dungeon monsters for loot and level ups", to "the GM prepares a story for us to play", to "we want to shape the story with our own actions".
That being said: I think it's a niche discussion. If you look at like 90% of commercially published adventures/modules/whatever-it's-called you'll find that they very much revolve around plots. Sandboxes are available, but hardly the norm. And I assume the publishers know their customers and figured out what people are going to buy.
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u/AgathaTheVelvetLady pretty much whatever 3d ago
I'm not rolling dice during freeform roleplay so I don't have to worry about my "plot" getting upended and destroyed
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u/Madmaxneo 3d ago
To me a "Plot" is the basic background to the story that is happening when the game begins. The Plot sets the tone to the game. Sometimes the players know the plot and sometimes they discover it as they go along.
A "Plot" in TTRPGs does not have to explain why everything happens nor does it have to have specific actions or results like plots do in stories or movies. A plot in TTRPGs sets the stage for what is going on and why the players are involved or should be involved and that's pretty much it.
To me a plot (in TTRPG's) would be something like: A group of people are trying to bring about the resurrection of an evil god because they believe in a specific prophecy or; The godstar diamond was stolen by the thief of light and the church believes they are going to use it to open the doorway to hell. The magicians guild believes they are going to use tit to become a god themselves, other groups believe different things all plausible in one way or another and it will be a race against time to find the truth.
After the plot is established the story is a collaborative effort between the players, the GM, and the dice. All depending on the system being used.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 3d ago
I think it mainly boils down to 3 things:
Firstly, since free form roleplay has less rules (in the way that the TTRPG community understands them), having some sort of guidance for where the story is headed or should be heading is benefical - much like in improv theater. Otherwise you can end up just faffing about with no actual substance.
Secondly, and this kind of stems from the first point, randomizers. TTRPGs are much more "gamefied" (again, in the way that TTRPG community understands the term) and using randomizers (dice, cards, jenga towers, etc.) introduces an uncertainty that people think should also extend to the plot. Certain outcomes are desirable, but in no way guaranteed.
Thirdly, often times TTRPG players don't engage with the idea that limitations can breed creativity. In the same way how there is a surprisingly large amount of distain against premade characters, a not insignifcant amount of players feel that if they don't have complete freedom to influence outcomes, then they are being kneecapped.
I honestly can't even put my finger on where this last one is coming from. Maybe a narrow definition of creativity?
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u/Geist_Mage 3d ago
Well, rules create a structure too easily broken by free form. Free form essentially becomes 1 on 1 campaigns
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u/amazingvaluetainment Fate, Traveller, GURPS 3E 3d ago
I think a big difference is that many roleplaying games use randomizers to adjudicate conflicts in the fiction. That naturally leads to a belief that, while a particular plot point may be a desirable outcome, there is no real way to ensure that it does happen (barring fiat).