Running DnD with No Plot (Emergent Storytelling)

0:00 Intro
3:38 Emergent Storytelling
4:22 Prep Situations
7:33 Factions, NPCs & Goals
10:29 Create Conflict
11:47 As the World Turns
14:32 Tools for Emergent Storytelling

Thumbnail Artist: Matthew Sellers
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#dnd #osr #sandbox #ttrpg #dungeonsanddragons
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[seanfsmith]

Frodo, Sam, and Gandalf were following an adventure path

Merry, Pippin, Gimli, and Legolas were in a sandbox game

[BigmanDogs]

I think another reason why people feel the pressure to have this big storyline is that many younger people got into D&D from broadcasted online. And we tend to forget that those people are youtubers, livestreamers, people in the entertainment business etc. They are professional entertainers producing content for us to enjoy. You cant put those expectations on yourself and your fellow players without inevitably being dissappinted.

[dinodm]

The best advice I’ve ever ready that sums up this video is this: “prep the world, not the session”

[SteveBonario]

"The story happens at the table." you nailed it -- that's it in a nutshell! Thanks for calling out the "situations" model. As a DM, it can be fun to be as surprised as your players to see how things unfold!

[ClutchGamers]

I have always been a proponent of having places, people, and things to do, and then letting the players decide where and what they interact with.

[obrien]

i’m a new dm, the campaign i’m running now started as a horror one-shot. everyone barely survived and wanted to continue on with their beloved characters. i have been struggling a lot with where to take the story next, and hearing “the story happens at the table” felt like a weight lifted off my chest. i love the idea of looking at your map and going “okay what’s happening over here” and letting that guide the world rather than trying to force everybody into what i THINK could be a good story.

long story short, thank you thank you thank you, i’ve been struggling a lot with this !!!

[robertbloom]

Creative Writing is a huge part of my career and I can say that, hands down, I enjoy GMing and playing non-narrative-shackled games. Emergent storytelling is where I have the most fun in roleplaying.

[jeremydurdil]

I’ve been DMing for 37 years. The story and plot has always been determined by the characters actions and interactions. I can’t imagine trying to run a predetermined “play” without the actors getting a script. It certainly explains many of the struggles I hear YouTube folks complain about. I guess everyone does it differently.
Have fun out there.

BECMI Forever!
Long Live King Elmore!!

[EpicoLirico]

I love emergent storytelling, is the perfect way to narrate a world in which the players and the GM contribute almost the same to the worldbuilding, and also a great way to promote player agency in a pretty much plot-forced landscape.

[phillipheaton]

I have been a GM for almost fifty years now and I've developed a system that works for me.

Start off with a session zero. Let your players know what you expect to come out of the session zero beforehand.
On the day of the session zero, find out what kind of adventures your players want. How did they meet/why do they want to adventure with each other? What are their individual motivations to adventure? What does everyone want to play and how well will that work (don't try and change their minds). What level does everyone want to start at? You now have the bare bones to prepare the initial rumors/problems that they can choose from.

Provide them with 3-5 situations that need dealing with and let them decide what they want to do. There might be a job to escort a merchant to his next destination. A criminal has escaped and there is a reward for his capture. You overhear a drunken teamster talking about the heavy chests he just delivered. Rats have been attacking residents and there is a 1 GP per tail bounty. A caravan is forming up to go to the next kingdom and can use more guards.
The beautiful thing with this is that some of the hooks will go away by the time that the party finishes the one they chose, another party could have done it. Some of them could have gotten worse, the rats are getting bolder and have snatched a baby from a crib. There will always be new ones and some old ones the seemed to have gone away may resurface later as an even bigger problem (the haunting of the cemetery calmed down, only to turn into a plague of ghouls three months later).
Most adventures will follow standard tropes, so you can improvise them with ease. Don't forget to throw in a curveball or two so that there is some spice in the stew, something they didn't expect (the merchant's apprentice running off with some gold, a sick child in a village they are passing through, an unwilling bride that has been promised to a bad man, etc, etc).

I have been able to keep my adventurers on their toes for adventure after adventure by doing this. If they want a more focused campaign, give it to them. The Lord's seneschal may need trouble shooters. The local Thieves guide (with a heart of gold) needs help fending off rivals. A merchant captain may need their help to explore a new land he has found.

[paulsavas]

I have multiple loose adventure plot ideas…then players choose…then I make it up as I go…usually taking player conversation as my guiding light!

[danweighall]

I do a bit of both. Me and my group enjoy an overarching story and I as the DM, enjoy coming up with a creative story. However I also really enjoy when the players take the story in their own hands and we create something together. Great video! Gave me a lot of inspiration!

[scorptrio]

Absolutely right! Give me a blank hex map, and any dungeon map that's large enough, and I'll give you a story that was based on nothing but the random encounters, the choices of the PCs, and the result of the dice, that you'd swear I had planned from the start because everything tied in together to tell a central plot, that also has sub-stories.

[Naeturveidimadur]

This is a very nice advice video. It's clean, direct and refreshing. Also, your diction helps a lot to follow through. Thanks for having and dedicating your time to help others.

[captcorajus]

Great advice. Emergent storytelling can, in the end, resemble an 'over arching' story after all is said and done. The advantage to emergent storytelling is that it is organic. It 'emerges' through many player choices in the campaign and thus is more engaging to the players. This is THEIR story, not some contrived plot created outside their purview in which they are merely non descript participants.

Like you said, I create several 'hooks' and the players choose which one to pursue. The other thing important to remember is that it takes a LOT of stress off the DM... they don't have to worry about 'keeping the players on track'.. and its never boring. It exciting because even the DM has no idea where things will ultimately go. I feel like I am the chronicler of the events.

I'm not a storyteller, I am a story enabler.

[ericpeirce]

I have always preferred the emergent storytelling in a sandbox style game. I usually start with a detailed city, that has a lot of detailed NPCs and things happening that the players can interact with. Ultimately I want the party to feel like they have a "home base" to go back to once they start adventuring. I will have some possible storylines that may take them out of the city for short periods of time if they choose to follow and one or two major world affecting events that will begin to unfold even if the players do not make choices to go in that direction. The campaign I am currently running is the first time I used a list of rumors that the players have all heard before the game started, with a few of them being ones that will be revealed as true during the unfolding of a few events as the story unfolds. I have always been lucky and had a couple of very proactive players that are always looking for something for their characters to do, so it is easy for me to put those hooks in front of them. It may take a year for them to eventually interact with the main world affecting events, but I want the pace of the game to be determined by the actions of the players. I only use hard timelines in games that are meant to have a set ending and/or are only going to last a handful of sessions.

[suzandouglass]

Ran a campaign for decades with my kids and their friends. As the grew up, the game matured as well. Created a world with more than one storyline, and LOTS of random encounters. Using random encounters also keeps the players attention on the game.

[Mammothbronco]

I like this. Recently ran dnd for a group and we developed the worlds history with microscope. This created interesting factions that the players were familiar with and gave me ideas for scenarios.

[Fawstah]

I appreciate that you're not saying don't prep. I mostly prep situations and moments I know are coming. Most of my prep is unknown backstory and paying off threads from the backstory and paying off threads the game set up.

[WillToNihilsm]

Its almost like writing a choose your own adventure that accounts for every choice is very hard. Only a few video games have done it successfully.

I write the next session based on the choices within the last session and then try to also include as many decision paths as i can and try to predict the actions of the characters and account for those.