Collaborative Storytelling in Dungeons and Dragons

While not considered media in the traditional sense, storytelling in Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is so essential to my daily life that it would be impossible to avoid discussing it. While unconventional, the collaborative storytelling central to the game create some amazing experiences. Compared to other media the story can vary wildly from group to group, and benefits from a flexible writing and performance style. Unlike the other media analyzed in this blog all of my experience in D&D is from writing and running the game, so this blog will also focus on how I my processfirst, let’s talk about what Dungeons and Dragons even is.

WHAT IS DND

Dungeons and Dragons is not a traditional game, and it’s hard to compare it to most other media. At it’s core it’s a collaborative story being told by a group of people, using board game like rules to facilitate story events. There are two main parts: Mechanics and Story. Like a board game there are pieces, dice and rules, and these things in D&D make up the mechanics. But unlike a board game, nobody wins a game of D&D. This is where the collaborative story part comes in. There are two roles being played in D&D, unlike most other board games. The first is the Player Character (PC). These people make up most of the group and are tasked with designing, creating, and playing a character. The other group is only one person, the Dungeon Master (DM). The role of a Dungeon Master is unique to games like D&D, and their main role is to shepherd the story along and be a referee for the rules. The company that makes Dungeons and Dragons writes their own story books, called Adventures, that DMs run for a group of Player Characters. There are also “homebrew” adventures, usually written by the DM in a world of their creation. This post will focus on storytelling in homebrew games. If you’re still confused, I have an analogy that should clear things up. Imagine D&D as a weekly broadcast TV show. The Player Characters are the actors in the show, and it is their job to play their created character each episode. The DM is like the Executive Producer of this show. They oversee all aspects outside of the actors playing the characters, from the story, to the music, to getting everyone to the same place to play. But unlike a TV show, there are some differences that come from it’s collaborative nature.

COLLABORATIVE STORYTELLING

Dungeons and Dragons is a collaborative story, and it works like a kind of call and response. Like the narrator in a book, the Dungeon Master describes the scene to the players and let them imagine the scene. The DM will then act out all the other characters in the scene. These other characters played by the DM are Non-Player Characters, or NPCs. The Player Characters then describe, gesture or act out the response of their character. The Dungeon Master then describes how the world responds, acting out the correct NPC responses and the cycle starts over. A “scene” starts with the DM description, plays out between the PCs and NPCs, and then usually ends with a DM description as the characters move onto the next scene. The narrative is similar in structure to a TV episode, but with one major difference. The Dungeon Master does not have complete control over the actions of the players, and sometimes a rogue idea or botched die roll throws the DM’s plans out the window. “Going off the rails” as they call it can be one of the most fun times to be a Dungeon Master as you scramble to improv your way along. A DM can sometimes “railroad” the game forcefully back on track, but doing this too is seen in a poor light by most players. My favorite way to deal with these moments is to just be flexible and let the story go where it wants to, and this works because nothing is set in stone until it happens.

BEING FLEXABLE

The flexible storytelling of D&D has been a creative addiction I can’t bring myself to put down. Because this is the only storytelling form I write, I wanted to talk about how I tell stories for D&D A section of the story starts out as a list of the major story points I want to hit, along with a cast of essential characters. I prepare everything else the week leading up to the next session, so that if the story goes too far off the rails, I don’t have to redo a ton of writing. This has also let me change something for a better idea even midway through the session. I often try to nudge my players into trying to figure out where the story shamelessly rip off ideas they come up with. The only time things cannot change is when they happen during a session, and this is like the premiere of a film or publication of a book. I build the story as the game goes along. Most of my writing comprises lists, ideas and pre-written descriptions, but usually my work is spent worldbuilding. I spend most of my time writing for D&D world building than I do actual plot work. My custom setting, Asteria, is over two-and-a-half years old and the setting of my D&D games. The world is being built to create a believable backdrop to my stories, and help with the storytelling itself. I build the world similar to the story, with the details being built as the game progresses through the setting. Because I know the world, I know how it will react to the player's actions. This is especially helpful for those “off the rails” moments when I have to improv. A good example of this happened in my last session. The party, made up of my college friends who play on zoom, are going to find someone in the Hanging Gardens of a desert city. I had expected to just describe their trek across the city to the gardens, but we ended up going off the rails for two hours. The players decided their character’s wanted to go shopping in the world famous market, and I scrambled. As I described the scene, I pulled up my notes on the market, reading it quickly when the players talked in character. I explained the system of colored flags to find an item. I realized I did not have a way to quantify bartering here with game mechanics but quickly reworked our existing systems with a slight modification. I even had a special merchant stall to use when a player rolled well on looking for an item, and it made for a great scene. The whole thing took around two hours before they returned to the rails and made their way to the garden. This entire process felt natural just because the location was built out. This system of Dungeon Mastering has worked wonders for me, but it only works with one caveat. To keep up the illusion, I always act as if everything went according to plan even if I was improving the last few hours. The other aspect of DMing is the performance put on for the players. These are the voices and mannerisms of the cast of NPCs, and it is something I rehearse like an actor in a play. I’ll spend my commute to UNH drilling voices in the days leading up to a session. I improve most of the details as I go along, but important descriptions I will write ahead of time and read aloud. The performance aspect is one that gets better with practice.

GIVE IT A TRY

If any of this sounds fun, check out the Running the Game videos on youtube by Matt Coville. They go much more in depth on how to become a DM, and are also what I learned from. If you want to learn more about my game, check out my world, Asteria, and the stories being told there.