What even is a story game?

After running Slugblaster, I realized I needed a better language to describe ttrpgs.

It’s been a while! Life’s been busy — too busy for me to write for Drolleries on a strict schedule. So you’ll get an article whenever I’m inspired (and have a free Saturday morning).

Since my last article for Drolleries (Drollery?), I’ve been playing lots of games. After I wrapped up an adventure of Daggerheart, I ran a Mothership scenario, a one-shot of Yokai Hunter’s Society (with my homebrew tweaks), a campaign of Slugblaster, several one-shots of Dread, and now I’m running Zedeck Siew’s Lorn Song of the Bachelor using Cairn 2e. With my online group, we finished an epic years-long campaign of the Fallout ttrpg by XP to Level 3. Now I’m running a game of Daggerheart, and next up I’m going to run Draw Steel (possibly using the Draw Steel VTT).

I’ve had lots of fun with lots of different games, from all different genres and styles - from goofy to scary, from brutally deadly to PG-13 Saturday-morning-cartoon-violence.

When I started running Slugblaster, I struggled to describe how this game was different from the games we had played before. This resulted in a misalignment between the game and how my players tried to engage with it, which was smoothed out over the next couple sessions. But I realized I lacked the terms to describe what was different about Slugblaster. I said it was more like a “story game,” but what does that even mean? And how are the players supposed to play differently?

Many others in the ttrpg blog-o-sphere have made efforts to define their terms, and I found them useful, but here I’m going to take my own stab at it.

So what even is a “story game”?

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I’m Colin, and I’m a professional game designer. This is Drolleries, where I write about the games I play and design in the ttrpg space.

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How much are the players creating their characters through improvisation vs planning in advance?

This difference in playstyle was immediately obvious to me the first time I played a ttrpg (Pathfinder 1e). Going around the table at session 1 introducing our characters, one person says “My character is a human ranger named Bromosel, he’s the heir to a kingdom, but his father Benelux exiled him for being incompetent and stuck-up, so now he’s broke and trying to get rich and famous to prove his worth to his father to eventually return to his homeland.” Cool, okay, next person? “I’m an orc cleric, and I prepared 3 instances of cure light wounds. But I’m kinda squishy so I should probably stay in the back.”

Some would say that the second player doesn’t care much about roleplaying, and that they’re only focused on the “game” part of “role-playing game.” But I don’t think that’s necessarily true. That player discovered their character’s personality as we played, as it flowed naturally from the game.

They prepared 3 instances of cure light wounds, and they wanted to stay in the back line, so they played their character as if they were constantly worried and afraid of danger — like the party’s overbearing helicopter parent. Playing the game was an act of improvisation, and only through improvisation and interacting with the mechanics of the game and the other characters did they figure out who their character was.

Are the players inventing moments of conflict or only acting to resolve it?

It was a shock going from 5e, Daggerheart, Mothership, and OSR dungeon-crawling games to running Slugblaster for the first time.

In Slugblaster, players are often expected to create moments of conflict for their characters, whether it’s through the downtime beats that have them describing how their families disapprove of their dimension-hopping slugblasting shenanigans, or coming up with ideas for runs. Players are expected to decide what the goal is for a particular session-long run, whether it’s making a legendary jump over the Devil’s Ballsack, embarrassing a rival crew, or hosting a massive party (that one happened a lot). The GM is expected to add complications, but the player’s initial pitch for the run still needs to have some core objective they’re trying to achieve.

This involves the players separating themselves from only experiencing things through the eyes of their character. It requires them to step back and look at the story from a different perspective and think “What would be an interesting challenge for my character?”

It was a big shock, but once my players got it, it was awesome. Because they came up with the general direction of the story, they were so much more invested when things eventually went sideways. In the first two sessions, I had introduced tons of npcs, possible rivals and possible allies, but the players got to choose which ones to include in their story going forward. It felt more like a TV writers’ room, where we all collaborated on each episode.

On the other hand, OSR games like Mothership have the players acting purely in their own self-interest, and that’s what creates the dramatic tension. The world is out to kill them, and the players are fighting tooth and nail to survive. These games have more of a traditional dynamic between the game and the players. Like in video games, the game presents an objective (find the android then get off the planet) and obstacles (massive armored carcinids and an impending flood), and the players do their best to achieve their objective in the most efficient way possible. But it’s the GM’s job to make sure that the players’ pursuit of their objective creates an interesting story. Like as in video games, if the player discovers that the obstacles can be bypassed in a trivial way, then they’ll suck all the fun out of the game. It’s the GM’s job to be constantly thinking of dramatic twists and complications.

But when the players have a hand in creating the objective and the obstacles, this dynamic isn’t really present, and the game breaks down if the players engage with the game in this way. That’s why Slugblaster required such a big mindset shift.

How much of the story is plot-driven vs character-driven?

The term “character-driven” is writing jargon that seems to have escaped containment into popular culture. I see games marketed as “character-driven,” when really what they mean is “this game is about a character that is interesting or well-written.” To my knowledge, “character-driven” was originally a screenwriting term with a very specific meaning.

Movies that are plot-driven have an overarching goal during Act 2, where the characters are trying to achieve some external objective. Most movies are plot driven, no matter how much the plot revolves around the protagonist. Despite being centered around the protagonist’s internal struggles with masculinity and self-worth, the new Park Chan-Wook movie No Other Choice is a plot-driven movie. He has an explicit goal: find a job in order to save his family and his ego.

On the other hand, character-driven movies have no external goal during Act 2. What ties Act 2 together is the character’s internal conflict. Movies like Lady Bird, Moonlight, Irma Vep, and La Chimera are all examples of character-driven movies. The protagonists have no explicit external goal, so reading the plot summary, it might sound directionless or random. But that’s because the movie is only tied together by the character’s internal conflict. Lady Bird is deciding who she wants to be: she argues with her mom, she meets Timothee Chalamet, and she breaks up with her friend. All of these are seemingly unrelated to each other, but they all change Lady Bird’s perspective on life and who she wants to be when she goes to college.

Anyways, back to ttrpgs.

I think most ttrpgs are plot-driven. The player characters have a goal, and the game is about them trying to achieve a specific goal. But some ttrpgs lean more towards character-driven stories, where the plot is less driven by an external goal, and more by the character’s internal struggles.

In Slugblaster, each session is plot-driven, even though the players come up with the objective themselves. But I would say that a campaign of Slugblaster leans more towards character-driven. Each session isn’t necessarily linked to the next through some overarching external objective or plot. The PCs are trying to be famous, yes, but in my experience, that objective quickly faded away and the story became more about each individual character defining their identity as they’re leaving high school. Meanwhile, a traditional “adventure” of 5e or Daggerheart is almost always liked together by an overarching external goal - defeat the villain before they do X.

All down to taste

Obviously, none of these approaches are “the best way” — it’s all down to your personal taste. And two different GMs can run the same game in vastly different ways depending on their style. But I do think it’s important to be able to articulate these differences to your players, to better communicate what kind of game you’re trying to run.

Thanks for reading! After running so many games, I have a lot I’d love to talk about, it’s just about finding the time to sit down and write. Until next time!