Storytelling for Beginners
I've been DMing for 8 years now. I know my way around a bag of dice, and I've made entire editions of system material. Yet, when it comes to storytelling, I'm a beginner.
See, Whitewolf has it all wrong; one person can't just tell a story to a bunch of PCs, if they themselves are supposed to be the characters. A roleplaying game isn't about being a spectator in the DM's world. It's hard to look at the DM and honestly try to pretend he's a beautiful elven maiden on whom you've set your heart's desires.
At the same time, roleplaying is not witty banter and canned chemistry. I don't think that slaying orcs and trading racial slurs is anyone's vision of the D&D ideal.
Burning Wheel may be on to something when they say that the essence of roleplaying is conflict between characters, not between the PCs and the DM. However, I don't believe the system makes the game. Burning Wheel won't transform my game into the ultimate roleplaying experience, nor does D&D as a system prevent you from experiencing just that. It's about taking the game a step beyond dungeon crawls and idle chat, into actual storytelling.
We're all beginners at this. Even the PHB and DMG can't prepare us, because that's not what they're about. They're just rulebooks, which pointedly try to serve the needs of players ranging from pure powergamer to chatty roleplayer and everything in between. Yet, our group, as a whole, tends toward a certain style of play that the rules and the D&D tradition alone do not provide.
That is storytelling. Not plot exposition; don't let the literal meaning fool you. The best of today's storytellers aren't really expositing a plot, they're just making up reasons to keep showing you the adventures of the characters you love. The visual fantastic element is minimized--production values take second place to script writing--to allow for the cerebral fantasic element. We want to imagine ourselves in extraordinary situations, not imagine we're an extraordinary person in extraordinary situations.
I believe I know a way to bring that ideal of storytelling into our D&D games. It begins with a new method that I would like to try immediately.
The Theory
Ultimately, all good stories are about characters. Those characters encounter problems we can relate to, yet in a way so basic and archetypal that anyone in the world can relate to them. To make the story interesting, beyond the value of a pure drama, you parallel the basic conflicts with obvious, external conflicts.
For instance, a character who is haunted by his own dark past might actually encounter a literal demon of his past, all the while expositing his dark history and thus bringing it into the open where it can be conquered. At the end of the story, he slays the literal and figurative demons, and grows as a character.
D&D can easily be that way, and here is how.
The Method
First, the players ensure their characters have enough hooks for the DM to work with. This is already done by everyone, to varying degrees; it's one of those things we do as PCs without even knowing exactly why, or how it will help us.
Then, the DM works with those characters prior to a session. They come to an understanding about the theme that will be explored, so that when it happens in the game, the player or players involved know how to react. It's easier to take a cue when you know it's coming.
Then, the DM creates the rest, including the external conflict (the literal demon) who will serve as the parallel for the internal conflict (the figurative demon). When this conflict is introduced, usually after the internal conflict has been brought up, the player knows where to go.
And, also importantly, the other players know what's going on as well. While not necessarily being in on every element of the story, for that would eliminate suspense and surprise, the players would know that a certain character is being explored in this particular story, and would adjust their roleplaying accordingly.
Now, the key is to ensure that the internal conflict is something understable, i.e. something archetypal. Exploring one PC's constant urge to cause horrible violent harm to innocent people is less likely to spur debate and more likely to spur the death of a PC. The DM and the character(s) involved can work together to find a basic conflict to explore. The more archetypal, the better, because the solution tends to be more obvious and more dramatic. Anti-heroes become heroes, self-destructive would-be villains destroy themselves, etc.
In Practice
I submit that in my current game, there are a number of issues we could potentially work with. Ardyn's got the alignment dilemma (does a lawful good character abide the use of evil power in his party because of his own guilt at the uses of his own power?). Tasha has a dark past that could come back to haunt her, mirroring a much darker nature that could REALLY come back to haunt her. Rylaun has his big, obvious secrets that have remained well-kept. These are all potential sources of a good story.
After all, how many people have wanted to confront Ardyn on his occasionally poor spell targeting? Or ask Tasha where the hell she runs off to all the time? Or ask Svetlana what the fuck she is after all? Or see behind the ineffable mask of Rylaun?
In this kind of storytelling, you can, because that's the point. It won't be inappropriate or uncomfortable to bring it up. Rather than conflict spurring real negativity, it will spur an exciting roleplaying scenario that can lead to actual character growth.
So I will begin to work with PC's on possibly stories that can be told with my game world and plot as a backdrop. After all, that, I think, is the real point of the D&D game we play.