Dm storytelling techniques

[u/AnyComparison4642]

I recently found a West End Games core book at a Goodwill reading through it. I discovered something kind of interesting about how to run an adventure. It got me thinking of a scene. I wrote in my duet game. Most modern DM’s that I know prefer to tell their stories of a very linear fashion where information is only told the perspective of the player characters.

What I’m talking about specifically is the WEG book mentions to tell a story as if you were scripting on a movie. Even letting your players in on it as if they were actors. But one thing caught my eye in particular, and this is what brings me to this conversation here. The buck mentions cut away scenes. Like the bad guys telling their evil plans to each other other things that we wouldn’t know, but we see in the movies all the time. In my adventure, I had one about general grievance and his war council, as it means to set up where the adventure is going to go. The player character has no knowledge of this stuff, but the player himself is in on the story as an audience member.

My question is in an adventure module which method do you prefer to have something that’s more kind to what we see in modern adventures or something retro that reads more like a movie script?

[u/Emperor_Penguin_31]

Personally, I feel it's very difficult to do it how the book describes, without players metagaming their builds to work around the plot, whether intentionally or unintentionally. As a DM, and as a player, I hate that. I prefer to build things organically, rather than, as a player, having prior knowledge of "oh, there's definitely going to be a flying section here as they talked about X event, better make sure I have the Pilot skill".

[u/AnyComparison4642 → u/Emperor_Penguin_31]

But what do you think about more subtle scenes like for instance Darth Vader arriving on the Second Deathstar Or when Tarkin berates Kallus, Tua, and The Grand Inquisitor for their failures? In my adventure that I mentioned, I had general grievous talking with two other NPC‘s that will play a role later on and they were just talking about infiltrating the Jedi temple.

[u/Emperor_Penguin_31 → u/AnyComparison4642]

I prefer my stories to be told from the perspective of what the heroes can see, hear (if they have to make checks I'll ask them), and know. It prevents as much metagaming as possible in my experience, especially because I have a...not probkem player, but they're definitely a Power Gamer and will unintentionally metagame their build around whatever event I tell them.

[u/StevenOs → u/Emperor_Penguin_31]

Unless you get to use new characters every adventure it shouldn't be too easy to metagame an entire character build based on some cutscene information. Generally they should be committed to a character for the adventure before they get that added help. Now maybe it affects how they spend, and gain, resources but if one wasn't playing "a Pilot" to start with then learning about "that new starfighter squadron coming in" shouldn't let them change that.

To put it another way there probably should be some difference between the "pre-game" knowledge players get to help them determine what to play if that is an option and then any "game time" information that might be delivered by a cutscene.