Storytelling or Dice rolling, what gameplay do you prefer?

[Uggi]

Hello everyone,

I've got this rather generic question about your preferred style of gameplay, when running/playing Shadows of Esteren: Do you like story to be the main focus of your play, or is it your character and its decisions/consequences based on heavy dice rolls?

I'm from Germany and my group basically always prefers the first (regardless the system). We just love a good story and how it's presented, so we have alot of cinematic roleplaying without dice rolling (usually we roll 1-2x per session if no combat happens). It's more like playing a movie. Cool, but simple.

But I'm curious if the majority thinks like that. For example in many reddit forums you read a lot of sympathy for the old school D&D type of gameplay: plain railroad plots with lots of dice rolling. Basically everything your character attempts to do is coupled to a dice roll. While this can create fun and new scenarios, you probably never get with a storytelling system, to me it is less appealing, because you restrict your character always to the dice (also rolling eats up alot of time, which I find rather frustrating).

However, imo Esteren is a very good system for both styles. So how do you play your Shadows of Esteren?

[Clovis]

I'm with you on favoring storytelling! Basically, as far as skill checks are concerned, what I do is request them every time there's something that could reasonably challenge the character's abilities. For example, a seasoned athlete (let's say with 4 in Combativeness and 5 in Feats) probably won't need one to climb a tree, while someone less used to physical activity will need to roll the die, since there's a non-negligible chance that everything will not go as planned.

Sometimes, I also use rolls to keep the story interesting and the players involved, even if I could have done without them. It's just a way to bring in a little challenge, and also to let the Players show their Characters' abilities (or lack of them!).

I'd invite most Game Masters to focus on storytelling first and foremost instead of relying on rolls, as an overabundance of rolls can detract the Players' attention from playing their Characters, and turn the game into a dicefest with little in-between.

But of course, in the end, it's up to every group to play in whatever way they're most comfortable with!

[Deorman]

Well Although I advocate for a high importance given to roleplay, I must say I'm a Dice roller and here's why.

Dice rolling even if insignificant let the player know he's still in action, he can act on the scene. Even if I try to adapt to any of their choices there are time to time events that must occur so the story can continue. And if players stop rolling dice the risk is they notice it's scripted and wait for the scene to end and act less.
And it can be very damaging because sometimes the player won't know if he's supposed to ask for a roll or if he's supposed to roleplay.

Not so long ago during a Wasteland Game, another player and I were nearly at the end of the scenario : the GM had us caught by ennemies without letting us do any roll dice to avoid it and we mistakenly took this for a "final scene" we acted less while in fact our lives were in great danger. We just didn't realize when we were in control again and we almost died.

So my stance is to do a lot of rolling so the players know they can act if they want to.
If I absolutely need something to happen I just cheat with my screen (that's why they exist) but the player still rolling a dice can't know it's a sort of a cutscene.
When I want a scene to be heavily roleplayed, I stop rolling dice and do extra description of everything so the players get into it, but when it's ended I take the first excuse to ask any kind of roll to one of my players so they know they're able to take actions again.

[WoeRie]

I have to second most what Deorman said. I love roleplaying out situations and listen to stories, but we had the same in a Cthulhu adventure. I think the problem of storytelling is that the focus is on the story, not on the actions of the players, which could (but of course does not need to) result in railroading.

I prefer to let my players roll if I think it could change the story (and this would be quite often) and if the result is not ok for the story I would rather drop the story and create a new one (maybe even on the fly). I love stories created by coincidence, most of the time they are far more exciting as the prepared ones. It happend quite often that my players killed my boss opponent during a first short meeting, destroying the whole plot. But who cares, then I either continue with something else or the No. 2 boss takes over. There is always as way to create a new story if the old just exploded by a dice roll, but for me this is part of playing. And think of the new stories which can be created out of a fumble or a heroic roll just in time:

Just 2 examples:
1) We had to defend a city against a superior attacker, so we used an artifact which was quite too powerful for us, but it was the only solution to save the city... and the result was a totally disastrous fumble: We ended on a different planet/dimension. But far later this resulted that humans and elves were reunited. So, a totally different story, which had nothing to do with the initial story of the city.

2) In MERP my Dunedain met Arven during a short visit in Lothlorien far before Aragorn was born and I decided to speak to her and rolled an impossible high roll (more than 300 in MERP, which is something less than a 0.05% chance I think), which resulted that she was so impressed by my character that she created a knightly order for me (and I died in a duel vs. the Witchking). But again, this was crazy roll, totally changing the world and the story we were playing.

These two things are stories I'll talk about, and the second was already more than 25 years ago. If our GM had restricted us in someway to the story, we would have never experienced this during the game. For me rolling dices shows me that I can actively change the story and design it myself during the game and don't get it prepared, ready to "simply" consume.

[Uggi]

I think the problem of storytelling is that the focus is on the story, not on the actions of the players, which could (but of course does not need to) result in railroading.

I agree that pure storytelling forces the players to become active themselves or else they just watch a whole session just as a bystander (if the GM doesn't actively involves them). But I don't think storytelling should be seen in a "negative" way, that takes away your control over your character and just throws them into a GM-desired direction.

I'll give you an example of my Intro from the Red Fall Scenario (minor spoilers): The group finds the injured PC and looks around for clues. I let them roll and on success they find footprints. No more details at first, just footprints everywhere. Based on the degree of success I add a little bit of detail to it (e.g. you see prints coming from different directions, or merging at some place, indicating a fighting spot etc.). Then the players start roleplaying. They want to compare the footprints to each other, make own prints and compare the size between them, see if there is a difference between human and animal prints. They even take out a yarn and measure their own foots, write the size down and compare this with the prints they've found. In the meantime they follow the prints into the high grass, getting an impression of the direction.
All these actions are so inventive, that I reward my players with more information. The size was smaller compared to the attacked PC, perhaps coming from two attackers, plus some animal footprints (wolves or dogs). spoiler ending

This is the thing I love about roleplaying. I don't tell my group everything based on good or exceptionally good rolls. They still have to play. I know this requires good/experienced players, that's why I can also feed these information to players with a high degree of success, but with "less inventive" roleplay. On the other hand, if they are just expecting everything based on their rolls I will give them less, because I want them to play out the techniques and ideas involved which represent the actions of the character that lead to this high degress of success.

So in general I use rolls usually for information gathering. In social social situations they usually have to play themselves. I don't like it when a player has a character who is for example very cunning and deceptive, but can't play anything of this (yet expects a "reward" based entirely on successful rolls). The roleplay itself opens up the possibility to make the roll. No roleplay/no ideas = no roll. I totally understand that some players don't like this attitude, because to them roleplaying is not like a drama school.

During our Unkown Armies campaign we stumbled across this article about better roleplaying, which I highly recommend. It really improved our gameplay. 11 ways to be a better roleplayer: http://lookrobot.co.uk/2013/06/20/11-wa ... oleplayer/

[Deorman]

Well we have to take into account that some people play characters with very good physicals stats but aren't themselves very fit and it doesn't pose a problem.
It's different with social and charismatic traits, some players want to have an especially intelligent and witty character but don't have themselves these characteristics in real life and it's an handicap for them to roleplay their characters.
But just has you allow a weak person to play an Hulkish character we should make it possible to allow a person without self-confidence in improvisation and socialization to play a charismatic and intelligent character.
And I think it's gm responsability to ease this for the player, sadly sometime it involve to rely more on dice rolling and helping them a bit, the game isn't there to lower their self-esteem and tell them "you can only play a brute you're not smart enough to play a smart character".
I love roleplaying and storytelling, but you can't rely only on that to make an enjoyable game because not all players are confortable with this even if they enjoy the concept of roleplaying game.

[Uggi]

Of course not. I'm not saying our way of doing things is the status quo. That's what roleplay should be about anyway: playing characters with feats, you (usually) don't express in your normal life.

Our campaigns (regardless of the system) tend to be very social oriented and we had players with very strong stereotype characters, like in Unkown Armies avatars of the king and the jester. And it's just no fun, when the player of the king can't play a ruler, yet has all the stats to do so, or the jester can't deceive you into doing things, yet he too has everything on the paper. Maybe this has become our standard over time...

But I would like to include more dice rolls in our games and so far the given examples for dice rolling are very good.

[Destiny]

I must confess that I have a natural preference for storytelling since I believe it helps erasing the limits of the game. When you use dice, you kind of know you are in a game and there's this material evidence of the distance between the player and the character. I love the immersive dimension of RPG. I think that my experience of messenger RPG explains this statement. To me, being the character is the most exciting part (it includes relations to others and actions, of course, but as a real person different from your original self). Yet, I've tried both gameplays through different games and teams, as a player and as a GM. And my experience told me that the two are very complementary at a table.

As a GM in Esteren, I'm trying to create a good atmosphere and to encourage people to embody their character. As much as possible, I let them tell, explain what they do, how they react, and interact direcly with each other or with NPC. Yet, sometimes, it is not enough or not realistic. As some of you said, some characters are very different from their creators so it can be difficult to have authentic reactions or it could be tempting to be closer to what you would do instead of what your character would do. In such cases, I use dice almost as a "punition"; the players attempt an action that is not fitting their character so they have huge chances to fail the test. Likewise, sometimes the players have very good knowledge of some activities even if their characters never learned them. There too, dice could be necessary. Besides, I don't think that dice rolling could be avoided in fights. Pure storytelling would be rather unfair and would supress the hazards of the situation. With luck, a modest artisan can survive to a violent thief or even defeat him. Dice rolling and storytelling balance each other and take frustration and boredom away.

To sum up my point, I favour storytelling but I use dice rolling too. I always encourage people to talk, to fully perform their characters and I spend lots of time in description, in meetings with NPC, in immersing the team in Tri-Kazel. Still, I don't want to be too peromptory in my guidance and using dices instead of my sole judgement on the plausibility and succes of characters' actions is a source of objectivity. It prevents players to be frustrated and it helps the ones that feel less comfortable or are more discreet to be really involved in the game. To me, the two can't be independant. To make a complete, dynamic and captivating game, you need both. Each GM and team would find its perfect balance and enjoy the advantages of both combined together.

[StripelessTiger]

I use storytelling as a way to augment the die rolls. If someone just wants to roll a Stealth check, then fine, roll away....but if they want to describe in detail how they are hiding, narrate a little, and provide justification by their actions, then I usually give a bonus to the die roll for their participation.

One of the books covers this kind of play style. It also covers what other games call "taking ten" which in d20 systems means accepting half the die roll as standard, without much concern for the die roll because it is a generic action.

I however, I like to instead ignore the die rolls for situations where a character has the necessary skill and the action can be considered standard or generic. Instead I let the PCs roleplay the event/interaction in place of the die roll.

I feel that with this distinction, you can leave it up to the PCs, not the game leader, since not every player is familiar with roleplay, and not everyone likes to roleplay. So it can be tailored for each person without changing the game rules.

Doing it this way has helped to indoctrinate some of my newbies into pretty efficient RPers in my games, and it makes everyone way more invested in "how" they do something, not just rolling a die and letting me, the GM, explain it.

If they are fine with that, then I show them that letting me decide the outcome takes the control out of their hands and into the dice alone, so I use very hard results with my narrative to reinforce that you can't take the die roll back after you committed to it.

RP first, then roll, augment the situation based on the effectiveness of the RP, and you have a very diverse system.

[Clovis]

Sounds like a good system to me! It's a very pertinent way of favoring roleplay first and foremost while being open to a more rolls-heavy kind of game if the players are more into it.