Does no one play the AD&D way, where most of the storytelling is in the hands of the GM?

Dungeons and Dragons example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px-KLwGEVko

Up to the GM and particular RP.

I think for the most part a lot of rps on here expect the GM to guide the story, and considering how it's their rp, and their setup and world etc, that's not unexpected. However I encourage my players to add to and contribute to the story when and wherever they can simply because I find that a more interesting and fun prospect that keeps me on my toes when it comes to developing the plot. If only I was telling the story, and my players simply wrote reactions to that with their characters, it would get boring incredibly quickly, and I might as well just write a novel instead.

In my rp, I encourage co-gm chapters. What that means is, for most of the chapters I would take the leadrole when it came to a chapter's story, plot and theme, even still with the allowance of players to guide and propel the story in ways they'd like, and then at other times have co-gm chapters, where one of my players would take the lead for a chapter with me backing them up in order to let them tell and contribute a story they'd like and help develop their characters further, etc.

I have GMed a lot and, although I have most control over the plot, I don't like having too much control and I try to find a ways to give RPers ways to influence the plot that could totally change how I had figured the RP would go. I view my RPs as collaborative experiences and, as Pachamac said, if I feel like I'm just writing to give RPers to react to, then I know I'm doing something wrong. I've been in RPs like this and didn't enjoy myself, so I try to avoid doing it myself.

If you're doing it right, you set your players up to tell the story. Sure your GM creates the setting and big bad, but the story is about John, Sally and Bob going on a journey through your setting to beat the big bad and your players create these characters, determine their actions and choices. Unless these actions don't make a difference, the players already are storytelling.

A good GM sets up the stage for the actors, he doesn't hand them scripts. On the flip side, a good player knows to take into account their environment, and set up a character that makes sense for the stage upon which they stand.

It's a symbiotic relationship when it works, parasitic when it's only half-functional, and destructive when neither side functions.

To me the way you describe it, it seems more like a RPS, a roleplaying story, than an RPG, a role playing game. I guess we differ in the styles we like. I grew up playing hero quest, which is completely structured, there is no room for negotiation, if you loose you loose, then went to First Quest, which is still very structured, with everything worked out in advance.

Right now I feel it's too easy. I'm not feeling the constraints the GM should put on me, and I don't feel I'm playing a game, I can do nothing wrong.

GM

You have set out to cross the forbidden woods. At the crossroads before the entrance to the woods, an old man approaches. "Don't go in here, it's not safe"

-He seems to mean it guys! What does your character say to him? Quickly, he's walking away!

Player (how it is here):

-The old man is my father.

"Hi father, what have you seen?"

Normally a GM would say 'no he's not your father'. A player should ask the GM whether his character knows the old man (actually the player should assume the character doesn't know the man, because the GM would have said so if that was the case).

Yeah, that's a type of RP, although not one that I play (or the majority of RPs on this site do either, as far as I'm aware). The main style of RPing on this site is that of a collaborative story. You get some RPs that involve more 'gaming' elements such as dice and/or stats, but for the most part it's a collaborative story.

A GM can still say, "No, he's not your father." and I would like to think the majority of people on the guild wouldn't do something like that in the first place, at least not without discusing it with the GM first.

Also, difficulty is up for debate. Yes there's a lot more here who do the whole "wannabe author" thing, but then, you have people like Kadaeux, or me, who will brutally murder your characters at the drop of a pin for making a mistake, and make it a point to advertise that.

So, eh', depends on the GM.

Brovo said
Also, difficulty is up for debate. Yes there's a lot more here who do the whole "wannabe author" thing, but then, you have people like Kadaeux, or me, who will at the drop of a pin for making a mistake, and make it a point to that.So, eh', depends on the GM.

Awww, you left me out, honey. No cuddles for you.

But no, if someone did that in my RP, without clearing it ahead of time. I'd go along with it, and then horrible kill the father, and comically kill the player with an oversized, non-flight capable chicken that utilizes a dropkick from behind.

Pachamac said
Yeah, that's a type of RP, although not one that I play (or the majority of RPs on this site do either, as far as I'm aware). The main style of RPing on this site is that of a collaborative story. You get some RPs that involve more 'gaming' elements such as dice and/or stats, but for the most part it's a collaborative story.

Do you know of any sites where they play the gaming style?

Have you been to this part of the site? That's where the more stat-based styles of RPing is typically found.

It strongly depends on the GM and the general RP rules. There are some RPs that call for strict moderation, specifically when the GM has a specific storyline in mind, or something like that. Of course, some individual autonomy has to be allowed in almost every case, otherwise you're probably going to have some pissy players. Some GM's (like myself) prefer a laissez-fare style of GMing, where players are fairly autonomous, though usually in these cases the GM would step in if something gamebreaking occurs. For instance, in my STALKER RP, one of the characters shot his employer in each of his limbs because his character is an extremely bloodthirsty SOB and he wasn't happy with the NPC's guards shooting at him. I had to ask him to change it because it went too far, and he did so graciously. It's the only time I've had to interject, so far.

There are other RPs where players have a large amount of autonomy in what happens with the storyline. If I recall correctly, Apocalyptica is a lot like that, where each character has their own story and they write it as they go with relatively little moderation from the GM (aside from basic shit, of course).

For the most part, it just depends on the GM and the RP in question. Every RP is done differently and with different levels of moderation.

It's more like

P: I shoot my employer and he dies

versus

P: I shoot my employer

GM: he dies

Typically in my games, I keep things structured so that I'm the one primarily introducing story elements, setting the scene, and controlling the actions and dialog of major NPCs. However, I like my players to have a fair deal of freedom so I tend to encourage them to make up and interact with minor inconsequential NPCs (as in, they can't overly affect the plot) and largely deal with their own fight scenes, unless it's against a major character. If I trust a player enough and know they're a good roleplayer who is more interested in telling a story rather than treating it like a game to win, then I even let them have more agency in how they do things and even deciding how a scene plays out. For instance, a player in one of my games killed a named NPC that I had created without consulting me about what he was hoping to do (and usually if somebody has story-related ideas they want to try, I just ask they run it by me first to make sure it's okay) and it was a fantastic and pretty chilling post that did a lot for demonstrating his character's development. I trust his judgement and ability as a player because I've known him for two years and he's always been very reliable. I like to get to that stage with players where they can do things that contribute to the story without me needing to control everything. I rather just tell the story with everyone else and kick things into motion when they need to.

I find it's usually detrimental to a game to add too many tabletop/ video game elements to it unless it's specifically a tabletop game. If people are more worried about stats or their equipment and being able to win, for a lack of a better term, you get really inconsistent writing and people who are afraid to take chances. If you have a character that's shooting at an enemy, I should be able to trust you to know if your character was capable of hitting the enemy or if the enemy would have logically made it to cover. The less I have to worry about micromanaging little systems and every tiny action that happens, the more I can focus on telling a story that the players enjoy and keep it moving at a pretty acceptable pace.

If you get bogged down in the small details and I as a GM have to rule on every action taken, then it takes FOREVER to get through a simple scene and players lose interest. Let's go back to our shootout example from the last paragraph, imagine you have say 5 players in this fight and a bunch of NPCs. Now imagine every time a player describes themselves as doing an action and the GM had to rule on whether or not it worked and write the reactions of each NPC, a gunfight that would have taken like two minutes in real time ends up taking 20 posts to get through and a half a month (or more). Doing things like that is counter-productive and kind of insulting to players, and I am sure it's a huge reason why a lot of games end up failing. If people don't feel invested in the story and are being babysat, they're not going to stick around.

In the hypothetical action scene I set up, it's much better to let players decide if their actions worked or not and you as a GM react with any remaining NPCs that aren't addressed. The only time you should have to step in in this situation is if you think a player's being rather unfair and handling things in an unbelievable manner (such as killing 7 enemies while running around in the open, shooting from the hip and having them piss themselves at his bravado or something without any consequence) or if you believe something is amiss that should be changed, like let's say one of the bad guys throws a grenade, and player defeats the grenade by throwing a backpack over it, believing that it would absorb the denotation without hurting anyone. You explain in the OOC that the grenade would tear through the backpack and the shrapnel would kill anyone within 25 feet, the player edits and carries on. The player didn't know how powerful a grenade actually was, having been raised on Call of Duty logic, and now knows that he needs to find a better solution to dealing with the grenade. While some GMs (Hi Brovo!) are ruthless and would totally punish the player for making a stupid mistake by having Private Ignorance totally get pulped by the detonation in a subsequent post because that's how they like to run their games (and there's certainly a great appeal to them. :D Best reads ever.), a fair deal of GMs probably would rather point out to an otherwise solid player about a potentially fatal mistake because they tend to run their stories more along the lines of a novel where if player deaths happen, it's usually story-related and not an instance of shit luck. It's an exaggerated example, but it should kind of give you an idea of where a GM needs to step in to deal with the details.

Ultimately, how someone GMs is up to them and their own style, be it a micromanager or a devil-may-care attitude, a ruthless rogue-like facilitator of death verses cultivating long-term character arcs. Just keep in mind the more you try to control every aspect of a game, the sooner it's going to unravel.

Brovo said
A good GM sets up the stage for the actors, he doesn't hand them scripts. On the flip side, a good player knows to take into account their environment, and set up a character that makes sense for the stage upon which they stand.It's a symbiotic relationship when it works, parasitic when it's only half-functional, and destructive when neither side functions.

Couldn't agree with this more. Dervs' anecdote about a player killing the NPC, too. It requires a lot of trust between the GM and the players to allow for that relationship in forming the story together, and it requires both sides to have a good sense for the story, the characters, and the setting - which is why, perhaps, it's rare to see it done well. When it can be achieved, however, it makes for a much more enjoyable experience - a team effort, a collaborative one, in the spirit of roleplaying itself.

I feel like a lot of your perception of ease goes hand-in-hand with some of the character death rules. You just may want to find a GM that, in player combat, provides you with the actual threat of character death.

But as someone mentioned, it is hard to include too many tabletop elements in a general RP. It is a massive burden to keep in order and most people lack the experience to properly set something like that up. It took me many years and many incarnations to create a truly successful hybrid of a more classic RP and a tabletop game. I learned a lot fro my failed system designs. It allows me to keep a good pace for more strongly GM controlled elements and the interactions between players.

Whenever we run RPs, we always like to let the players introduce and run threads of storyline that we know nothing about. For the main storyline, we like letting them know about the primary goals and such OoC. And when we want to run a thread that we don't want them to meddle overmuch in, we keep it secret from them.

Even as a GM I prefer to pitch the responsibility of the story telling to the players, since I'm likely to partake in it as a player myself and having too much power or influence over the story would feel unfair to everyone else in it.