Emergent Player Character Arcs 

Love this topic. Emergent Narrative has been a real focus of mine since my group started playing years ago. I love seeing a story grow out of the natural process of 'simulationist' play

Oh. This is an interesting one.

I am a railroad new school GM and all I can say is: Oh my god... I get it.

Last DCC session, I “retired” my Wizard PC. The party had just “cleared” a sorcerer’s tower, and my character decided to stay behind, because he reckoned it would take him months or years to decipher all the written material that could be found there. This made sense, because I had maintained since the start of the campaign, that Wayn the Wainwright went Wizard in order to gather all the power he could to defend himself against the many terrifying Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. For the other players, this dungeon was over-but not for Wizard Wayn! So the characters said their adieux, and I’m going to play next session with a new Dwarf character.

Great video Daniel! I think the best way to encourage these arcs is by simply asking your players to treat their characters like real people. If they do this, then just like real people, the characters will change, and the players will get the wonderful experience of seeing someone they know evolve before their eyes.

Judge Dredd is the prime example of anti-character arc I can think of. Dredd starts as a bloke who believes only harsh law stands between the city and chaos, and nothing about that fundamentally changes after each episode. The characters in Dredd are the victims, perps, robots, citizens, muties, the odd alien or demon. The chumps who swirl around dredd for a single episode and sometimes whole arcs. Often Dredd is the side character in his own story. The real story is the ugliest man of the city who is gifted billions of pity money to start a wart-growing salon. Some dude who does legal human taxidermy gets pressed into a job for the mob. People around a competitive eating contest. Conans arc is just stretched over several books and jitters and jumps in time. But Conan the young crappy thief is not the same as the adventurer, the captain and later king.

There aint nothing wrong with static characters. I actually think static characters are best for a pulp fantasy/ sci-fi story. Can't get lines like "I like my starships fast and my dolian women faster" with a guy who has any intention of becoming a better humanoid.

I have a player in my campaign that I see changing, but I haven’t said anything. I think it’s interesting to see how he has gone from the bullet proof character to realizing his actions have a cost beyond his own self. They started a war and the world has been shifting around them. He was talking to an Npc and said he felt “responsible”. As a first time Dm, I have just kept quiet. I’m not sure if I should prompt him

Easier to catch lightning in a bottle. Yje more time you spend out in the storm with your rid held high, the more chance of it. In other words keep playing and hope yo strike it.

Emergent story arcs are my favorite because they are organic. You can’t plan for it, like you said but the key is recognizing it! Love your channel Daniel!

This is one of those things that is really dependent on having players that are truly attempting to see the world as their character sees it and think about how events really impact the character. Although, it isn't always a positive outcome when you do. I once dropped out of a game due to being unwilling to try to dig my way out of a social pit that other players had caused in the setting (I believe it was "Night Below"). I determined the best thing my character could do would just be to leave and quit associating with these nutty people so as not to be further dragged down by them. On the other hand, one of my favorite characters (played when I was young, single, and had lots of time) was from a 2 or 2.5 year long game that covered about 26 years of his life. That included having a family and changing occupation (class change) in an attempt at leading a somewhat safer lifestyle to be able to return to his family more reliably. Of course, that didn't really work out all that well due to the nature of RPGs and Game Masters, but the attempt at changing lifestyles was fun. I'm also wondering if this is something that happens more in smaller groups, or if it is solely based on players. I know that in larger groups (5+), I tend to do less with my characters as far as responding to the game world with change than I do in small groups (particularly if it is just 2-3). Good topic and food for thought!

Gygax wrote about characters "changing alignment", which sounds a lot like unplanned and emergent evolution of character personality and morality. In DMG, Gygax encourages charting the PC's actions on an alignment graph. This would be a visual record of just such "emergent evolution". Obviously people have used alignment in a variety of ways, some very different from the way Gygax is suggesting, but I think it is an interesting proposition. Cheers!

Conan's story arcs are between stories, not within stories (at least for the REH stories). More is revealed as you read through the catalog. He's only static if your perspective is static. Correspondingly, it's fine to have a character be static within an adventure, but develop over the course of several. In fact, I think that's more natural, and facilitated by the level-based character advancement mechanics.

Having events in game change characters unplanned is the best part of campaigns for me. Many years ago, had a particularly trying mission in Warhammer 40K Dark Heresy which riled my character enough that she went and found another PC...one thing led to another and their on again, off again relationship has been a defining part of the campaign that is going into its 3rd rules iteration after 12 years of playing.

I think the most common instance in my usual group is that players retire their characters when a particular reason is solved or the path the other characters take diverges from the alignment of their character. One example is at the end of my current adventure as a player, my current dwarf druid plans to leave after solving the issue of a great darkness in the far north. He joined for this purpose as well, as I'm a bit busy compared to the rest of the group I've had to hop in and out with new characters more often as the plot moves faster than me. I'm often called the "NPC" of the group for this reason, and get a bit of the red shirt treatment. But others in my group have retired characters when the story bends too far from their purpose or alignment as well. Otherwise, the more common in-game development I've seen was like mentioned the leadership and responsibility for the group. Typically as consequences are established there is a sense of slowly approaching a "good" alignment rather than a chaotic neutral beginning, with many of my group having checkered pasts. I'm not sure if i have witnessed a true in-character bond though that developed further than the initial player backgrounds, as the group I'm in is somewhat comical as well and the shenanigans and comedy outweighs the serious drama.

I have had a Ranger/Druid who has been being investigated by his ex-circle for having betrayed their ideal and using his wildshape only for his one benefit (power) who recently went out of his way to approach and heal a wounded and dangerous elephant. He had no idea he was under observation, and now next session a Druid hit-squad is going to reveal that they *arent* here to kill him.

My issue with this is that its sooo rare in games I've played. As a GM I have to force situations and scenarios that allow character growth. I don't know which decisions the characters will take but I know which decisions are there to take and sometimes I get surprised but most of the time they take the decisions I already planned ahead of time. I know this is railroad in my perspective and in the eyes of a lot of simulationists old school players but my players love it. They merely think they are taking decisions, and in a sense they are, but their freedom is very limited when you look behind the GM screen. The campaign is going into its third year and we've seen amazing stories. Overall I can say I couldn't predict where they were going in the long run, but I know which step they will take in the short run.

I like to offer choices to my players: I always have the option to join forces with the bad guys, or pledge allegiance to a new cult god found in a temple, etc. the story can go anywhere from there!

Such great character arc examples! The difference between a planned arc and an emergent one are night and day (speaking from experience).

Someone who started playing as a young bard who just wants to write epics about heroes hes venturing with (not himself, hes not a hero), the most attractive thing about the character for me is the emergent character arc because it can go in so many places from here.

Beat writing can help for the emergent seeds you sprinkle through the hex crawl amalgamation that you set up.

It is the flashback episode of play

I had a character I had conceived as a never-say-die pollyanna type. During a mission she fucked up bad, blew up a bomb, and nearly killed several members of the party. Also she outright died in the blast and lost an arm. she was resurrected and got a new arm, but it completely changed the trajectory of the character to the point she became completely neurotic about disaster thinking and keeping everyone alive. When the party went on a long voyage, she took hair, feathers or nail clippings from everyone to save back in Waterdeep so that if the ship went down there would be pieces for the druid to cast reincarnate on.

Fantastic topic and content

In my last session something of the sort did happen to one of my players PC's. The party recently incurred the ire of a powerful hag that began harassing the party and took out one of the player characters semi-permanently (several weeks to months of coma, basically). Their Character was always the single one out trying to talk the party down from their overly pragmatic/evil approaches, but being faced with a foe they literally could not touch and the possibility of a party member slowly wasting away from a curse in their sleep, they decided to go along with a truly and irredeemably evil plan, permanently changing how their character views the world.

My game now. A monthly check resulted in a terminal parasite. A party formed to explore the outcasted mother of toads west of Bogtown for a cure. Explored local swamps found the mcguffin. Cure recovered and administered. All this came from the monthly check for diseases. The players all did this. They wanted to help their fellow player. They happened to find a sunken crypt and have since returned to explore it.

I had a character, one of my few who was passively searching for their mom, awhile later the heard of a wishing well of sorts after struggling to get to it, he wished for his mom to be with him unknowing about her death in a dangerous city( he was once a Joyce teen) changed him to be a stressed tactile leader for a small group of riff raff who soon fled a corrupting city

Awesome topic! Really excited to listen to your take on it. I love your evergreen/setting agnostic content.

What is the thumbneil art?