The Story Behind the Game

I’ve been talking to people recently about getting new games started, and I find I often run into a little problem. I’ll be trying to nail down what the game is going to be about, and I’ll mention “the story.” This seems to be a problem for a few people I’ve come across. They don’t want to have a GM write “a story” and then have them stroll through it. But I’m looking at the story as being the events that happen. After the campaign is over, if you tell someone about it, that’s the story. Every RPG will involve events, and anytime you talk about your last game or last session, you’re telling a story. It just seems like some people don’t like using that word to describe the game. They don’t mind an RPG being called a game, but they do mind it being called a story.

It’s even worse when I talk about the story before we even start. If I imagine the campaign as a revenge thriller then that’s the kind of story I expect will be created out of the campaign. If we say we’ll play a pirates game then I expect the story will involve some swashbuckling and some raiding and maybe a ship or two will be involved. As a player or GM, if I sign up for a game that is about something, then I try to stick to the expected story tropes of that something. Variations and exceptions will arise naturally anyway, but it seems to me that everyone wants to rail against cliches these days, and be seen to not conform to stereotypes.

The worst aspect of this for me is that I feel other players want to have the right to do whatever they like on a whim. They don’t want to have to write character traits on their sheets, choose an alignment, or state a goal for their character. They want to be able to do whatever they want whenever they want, with no consistency or theme to it all. In a story, the author will probably spend some time designing each character, what they want, what they like, what their goals are, and so on. If they do something that conflicts with their goals that will be a design choice to make the story more interesting. The type of player I’m talking about will never have a character conflict because they will never consider anything except their current whim.

What I think is normal is for a group to get together and talk about the new campaign they will play together, and agree on things like the rules system, setting, house rules or sub systems, as well as the venue, schedule, and logistics of it all. I feel like some people will discuss a few of these elements, but resist discussing others, like the tone of the campaign, the bookends of the story, the expectations of each player and their character.

I know players who don’t want to spend time discussing the rules that will be used, or debating the merits of one subsystem over another. They’ll just want the GM to decide on the rules, and then they’ll play by them. I totally understand that, and as long a such players can actually use the rules during the game then they won’t disrupt my enjoyment. But if players won’t discuss what the game will be about before starting out, then I think the game won’t be about anything, it will just be dudes doing random stuff for kicks. I can take part in a pretty simple game of dungeon bashing, but I want to know that that’s what it is before we start out, and I don’t want my friend spouting political oratory as his character introduction when it’s not a political game. If I ever want to have a deep meaningful game of intrigue and tension then I’m pretty sure I’d need the GM and other players to know that that’s the type of game we’re all playing.

Is it just that I want specific things, so that each campaign is distinct, and other people want generality, so all campaigns are the same?