D&D with foresight
So I've been thinking about what would make a good story, at least in my mind. And given the speed and the idea of collaborative writing, I thought I'd toss this idea out there for possible interest.
Basically, a party of 4 to 6 adventurers who all know each other somehow adventure and quest with grand schemes in mind. This would be a fairly standard numbers game behind the scenes, dice, combat, hit points, blah blah blah, but none of that is in the written story. The story is what it looks like. Combat and effects can be glorified but the numbers stand. The focus here is character and story development. Sounds pretty basic, but here's the catch, players will have complete foreknowledge of where this is going.
By complete foreknowledge, I mean these will be published adventures, hopefully accessible to everyone involved. So everyone knows what the finished goals will be, what the treasures are, what the monsters are, etc. The characters of course will not, but I think that with this foreknowledge that a better story could potentially be written. I'm not suggesting starting with the Temple of Elemental Evil here. I would actually like to start very very small like that pick your own path adventure in the old Red Box. I'm up in the air on using specific editions of D&D though I have a preference for 2e.
Thoughts? Comments?
JOE--
Comments
If the outcome is predetermined, why use a rules system at all? The rules are only there to determine outcomes, so if the outcomes are already determined they become inessential. Also, one of the major draws for me is not knowing what's going to happen next, or where the plot will lead, or how the mystery will be solved. YMMV
Still, none of this matters when it comes to story quality. I'm sure this crew could write a good story under nearly any circumstances.
Sounds more like Spirit of the Century...well except for those actual D&D modules.
Just because the adventures are published and available to all doesn't mean that the outcome is known. The GM doesn't usually know the outcome of a face-to-face game even though he has the published adventure in front of him. The players can go off on a tangent, tackle things in a unique and different way and so on. Plus there's all the random stuff. Hence the need for a GM and dice.
So, you'd have to predetermine the details of the outcome of all the fights, trap-picking, secret door searching, etc before hand. And make sure the players don't do something 'unexpected'.
And I'm with Thrak: not knowing what's around the corner is part of the fun.
Also, it sounds a bit like you're describing collaborative fiction writing, where everyone knows the plot and what's going to happen and you're all basically writing a joint story (with the GM acting as editor and NPC writer).
...I'm not Hollow.
...I'm not Hollow!
Actually I can see a benefit in this, although to me it seems more like just parcelling out some of the GM responsibilities. Would work very well for speed. Eg I have a character who is searching for a secret door. I make a roll and rather than waiting for a GM response I can just check the module and go ahead and write the outcome. Works the same with combat. I roll to hit, then check the monsters stats, roll damage if approriate and modify monster hit points.
For that sort of mechanical thing it should work very well, sure there is some need to be carful with seperation of IC and OOC information. eg I (the player) knows there is a secret door but should my character really search the third bookshelf more carefully than the rest.
For the non mechanicle aspects of GMing, reacting to the unexpected, controlling the monster actions etc, you still have the traditional methods.
II just don't know whether the loss of surprise in everything and the extreme dificulty of keeping IC/OOC knowledge seperate when the player knows everything is worth the savings of letting players be their own GM.